The AP reports that Obama has picked Robert Gibbs to be his press secretary. He was Obama's communications director during his campaign. This is not good news. When I saw Gibbs on television I was always left with a yucky feeling, kind of like when I see someone picking up poop behind their dog. From the article:
One critic called Gibbs "the bland face of brazenness" when he said Obama's decision to resign from his church amid the controversy over the Rev. Jeremiah Wright was "a deeply personal decision, not a political decision."
To me he's a bit worse than bland but I agree that he's brazen. According to a former employer (former Rep. Glen Browder, D-AL) he's also special:
"Robert had a special quality even back then. In retrospect, it was clear Robert was destined to make his mark."
It takes someone really special to stand in front of America and say that Obama's decision to denounce his pastor of twenty years was not politically motivated. That the timing of his "deeply personal decision" just happened to occur when Wright was getting a lot of bad press and Obama was in the midst of his campaign. And the poor guy was not joking.
Gibbs reminds me of Billy Mays. They both are trying to sell us a load of crap. In fact I may have stumbled upon Gibbs' job description: Clean up the crap your boss leaves behind and then sell that crap to the public.
Why is Obama staffing his administration with so many Clinton people? Is it because he wants to move toward the center as some of the talking heads have said? No, it's because there are no Obama people, other than a few crooks and fringe elements. Remember that he was a little known Illinois legislator just four years ago. He is a phenomenon without much substance. He has no executive experience and no great following.
I'm not saying that he's dumb. He's smart enough to name a few conservatives to his national security team. He's smart enough to know if he selected all liberals he would have a national insecurity team.
He has picked some good financial people too. But I don't know about Hillary at the State Department.
I hope he does govern from the center, but I tend to feel that Charles Krauthammer is right in saying that the stage is set for Obama to transform America:
With the country clamoring for action and with all psychological barriers to government intervention obliterated (by the conservative party, no less), the stage is set for a young, ambitious, supremely confident president -- who sees himself as a world-historical figure before even having been sworn in -- to begin a restructuring of the American economy and the forging of a new relationship between government and people.
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