Hope, Change - or More of the Same
Published November 26th, 2008Barack Obama has one and millions of lefties seem to think that its the second coming, that Big O is going to lead us all into a future Democrat utopia. OK, maybe not that bad - but close. Much of the progressive wing of the Dem party (and I consider myself to be pretty much in that wing) expects big things from the Obama administration. Unfortunately - he’s already started to give them a bit of pause, maybe a bit of concern. Why? Because Obama’s cabinet choices are decidedly non-progressive. In fact, they look a hell of a lot like Bill Clinton’s choices. And of course, the faces of the Clinton administration are ecstatic. I’m sure they were wondering if they’d be cut out from the New Democratic Order in the White House/Congress.
But as it turns out, they haven’t been - Obama is even going after individuals who are considered Clinton loyalists (not the least of which is Hillary Clinton herself). And now, Obama is choosing some people to head his economic recovery team that is putting the progressive left into an apopleptic fit.
But how else is one to respond to Barack Obama’s picking the very folks who helped get us into this financial mess to now lead us out of it? Watching the president-elect’s Monday introduction of his economic team, my brother-in-law Pete said, “You can see the feathers coming out of their mouths” as the foxes were once again put in charge of the henhouse.
Well then. I don’t necessarily disagree. And I’m not altogether crazy about the choices Obama is making - again, I consider myself part of the progressive wing. But the difference between me and the rest of them - I never expected Obama to actually follow through with out-of-the-box appointments. No way. Because I don’t consider him to be the Democratic messiah that so many are making him out to be. I’ve said this not once, but twice. While I agree with a great number of Obama’s stated views, not for one second have I ever assumed he wasn’t a typical politician. I think he’s a smart guy - and that’s precisely why I never expected anything else. He’s done, for the moment. playing politics for the American people - now it’s time to play politics within the Democratic Party. And that entails picking people who were last at the top - the Clintonian regime.
Obama is not the American Political Jesus. I knew this - it’s just that some of the left is just figuring this out. He’s a man, a politician. I think he’ll make a good, maybe great, president. I hope that he will enact a good many things I feel strongly about. But he’s not going to do it by wiping the DC slate clean, regardless of what the progressive left might have expected. I hope he will reform government, but I have no expectation of him revolutionizing it.
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