The Cabinet's Not Bare

After a stunning victory in the election two months ago and less than two weeks from taking the oath of office, President-Elect Barack Obama has been working hard to get off to a running start. Already making plans for how to deal with the economic crisis plaguing our country, he's also looking to fill posts within his cabinet with people who will help him push the agenda and platform he ran his election campaign on. Not everyone agrees with all of his decisions but at least one can't say that he isn't making some interesting choices.

Now some pro-Hillary supporters feel that perhaps his decision to name Senator Clinton as the Secretary of State was to subdue and pander to the pro-Hillary base which had been upset over the fact that she lost in the primaries to Obama but at least he is proving himself to be more than just a bag of hot air when it comes to putting the money where his mouth. He had said that after Senator Clinton lost the Democratic nomination that he hoped that he could count on her and Bill Clinton's support and though at times that support may have seemed begrudging, it was still given. And if you want to by highly cynical you can argue that perhaps Obama named her to be his Secretary of State due to his desire to make ammends. It was also the reason that many of these same cynics believe that he named Joe Biden to be his Vice President and that he sought to name Bill Richardson as his Secretary of Commerce and there came the first problem in his naming of potential Cabinet members.

Bill Richardson withdrew earlier this week due to his feeling that some of his past business dealings could have impact on his ability to properly run the Commerce Department so he withdrew himself from the nomination. It was the first time that the otherwise smooth efforts at transition had been interupted but now it seems that when it rains it pours. Though not content to let the news subsist on mere information about Richardson's withdrawl, Obama went ahead and announced his intention to name former Clinton Chief of Staff Leon Panetta as his CIA director. The announcement was met with much criticism primarily because many felt that the selection had been made without properly vetting or getting information on Panetta and how he would fit within the CIA hierarchy.

One can say that if we have learned anything in the past 8 years its that when the President says something it usually happens and although there are still 13 days before Obama is officially President, he is already taking steps to ensure that his choices are as transparent as possible to the public and Congress so that there are no accusations of subversion or chicanery in his creation of his Cabinet because if there's one thing we don't need for the next four years its a President who thinks that he is the ultimate authority. I think Obama is beyond that realm of thinking and the fact that he's trying to find qualified personnel to fill the vacancies and is retaining those who will have knowledge to make his transition into the role of President that much wiser.

Obviously going in for a radical culture change in Washington isn't going to please everyone and that doesn't seem to be what Obama is trying to prove; otherwise why would he have chosen to keep Robert Gates as his Secretary of Defense? He's been in the post for quite some time now and rather than bring in a new person at the point where the administration is seeking to withdraw our troops from Iraq it wouldn't make sense to appoint someone who doesn't understand the situation. But change is needed in that in some posts there has to be a shift in the message coming from the White House on certain issues.

The current Surgeon General reported that he often came under fire for not having views that aligned with the Bush Administration and now Obama is seeking to change that. And to have that he's supposedly courting CNN surgeon extrordinaire Sanjay Gupta. One can argue that he's spent more time reporting than he has doing neurosurgery but that doesn't mean he can't be an effective spokesman for the President's health care agenda. I think he is making a right choice in seeking out Gupta. His years on CNN have made him an effective communicator and if healthcare is one of the areas which he wants to make a change in then he needs someone who can convince the people. So though the Cabinet is still far from being full and ready for a first year, it's getting there. And it's getting there very carefully.