Thursday, November 6, 2008

Chief of Staff

It looks like high ranking Dem Rahm Emanuel is getting the nod to be Obama's Chief of Staff. This should set off plenty of right wing alarms. Not only is Emanuel the son of Jerusalem-born militant Zionist, he also put in a lot of hours during his 5 year stint as a senior advisor to the Clinton administration on helping Israel and Palestine reach the Oslo Accords (whether or not this was a success is debatable). The Fox News fear message of the day is that Obama will surround himself with cronies from his time in Illinois and ostracize Washington. Fox decrying cronyism is like the Pope decrying funny hats. Sure this contradicts the rah rah excitement Sarah Palin brought to the table about being a Washington outsider who would shake things up and give a new look to Washington. But more importantly, it's smoke without a fire. Obama will likely lean on established Washington names to reshape this government to bring us back to being a beacon whose lead the rest of the world follows. I am encouraged that instead of immediately going on vacation and having his vice president elect make all the big decisions as to who he should appoint to serve REALLY IMPORTANT roles in his administration, he has named a known ally with history in the White House to help him make these tough choices. It's not like he's about to name Rev. Wright Secretary of State or put Bill Ayres in charge of FEMA, but who he surrounds himself with now will determine the success of his first term. Emanuel has a reputation for being a hot-head just like Biden is known for being long winded, but this decision makes good sense to me.

1 comment:

alzaido alzaido said...

I have the utmost confidence that President Elect Obama will make great choices. He will pick a tremendous team to systematically tackle America's huge flaws effectively and efficiently as possible. To understand how brilliant he is at choosing staff, planning, and implementing his ideas, we need look no further then how he ran his campaign.