Sunday, December 14, 2008

Interregnum 4: The Clintonian Invasion

The Clinton Soap Opera meets No Drama Obama. Not all of Obama's Cabinet positions and White House staff have been announced, but there are a lot of Clintonites in Obama's upcoming administration. The biggest and most conspicuous Clintonite is HRC, Hillary Rodham Clinton, the wife of the Big Dog himself, former President Bill Clinton. Clinton basher and New York Times Columnist Maureen Dowd has so much more material all of the sudden.
Tim Geithner worked as Under Secretary of the Treasury for Internal Affairs during Bill's presidency and is now Obama's nominee for Secretary of the Treasury. Larry Summers, a Secretary of the Treasury during Bill's administration, is now the designated director of the National Econmic Council. Bill Richardson is the designated Secretary of Commerce and he's served in the Clinton White House as U.N. Ambassador and Secretary of Energy. Susan Rice, Obama's designated U.N. Ambassador, served on former President Clinton's National Security Council and filled the position of Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs during the Clinton years. Eric Holder, a former Deputy Attorney General for Janet Reno, is another former Clinton staffer, and was actually involved with Bill's controversial Presidential pardons just when the Clintons left the White House.
Even Obama's Chief of Staff, Illinois Representative Rahm Emanuel, was a senior advisor to the Clintons in the '90s. There are a lot of people who are apprehensive about the number of former Clinton staffers and advisors are in Obama's White House, but he had to get people on his team who are experienced, and former Clinton staffers definitely are. What people keep forgetting is that there was a twelve-year gap in between Democratic Presidencies – from Jimmy Carter at the start of 1981 to Bill at the start of 1993; so, it makes sense that Obama fills the Executive Branch with former Clinton staffers. It's better than having a large contingency of former Reagan, Bush 41, or (shrug) Bush 43. Let's hope that Bob Gates as the continuing Defense Secretary and Jim Jones as the designated National Security Advisor is all the Dubya that Obama can stomach.

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