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See the title. Just appeared on TV.

Obama's cabinet appointments have been praised by pundits on all sides. Some say he is building a centrist (for Democrats) White House staff that knows Washington's ways and has the respect of congressional leaders. Of course this is driving the crazies from MoveON up a freking wall. Earlier this week, Steve Hildebrand, one of the key field generals in President-elect Barack Obama's presidential campaign sparked a firestorm among the liberal commentariat when, in a piece for Huffington Post, he sought to defend the incoming president against charges that his Cabinet picks to date have been too moderate/conservative.... ...Jane Hamsher, a...

As that Old Saying goes, "Birds of of a feather flock together" With all the revelations about President-elect Barack Obama's Socialist Party Ties, it is not surprising that he would try add like minded people into his cabinet. Former Congressman David Bonior fits the bill. Obama was a member of the Chicago chapter of the Democratic Socialists of America, Bonier was a Boston member. Here's a little snippet from the 9/07 issue of the Yankee Radical, the Boston DSA's Newsletter It should also be noted that Edward’s recent statements on this issue have shown real improvement, which might be due...

While Barack Obama introduced the first members of his economic team, a wailing noise could be heard somewhere in the background. That was the sound of complaining liberals, who worry that the president-elect is already surrendering the progressive moment to centrists -- the kind of post-election disappointment with which they are all too familiar. Looking over the names of the new Obama appointees to important positions in the Treasury and the White House, critics on the left have dismissed them as "Clintonite retreads" or worse. According to this gloomy analysis, the incoming administration is poised to repeat the mistakes of...

WASHINGTON — President-elect Barack Obama is weighing prospects for energy secretary... Possible candidates mentioned to head the department range from Sen. Jeff Bingaman, D-N.M., to Kansas Gov. Kathleen Sebelius and Dan Reicher, who directs energy initiatives at a Google foundation. Another candidate that had been mentioned is Houston Mayor Bill White... Reicher, 52, is, perhaps, the most prominent contender for an out-of-the-box choice. The biology major at Dartmouth and a graduate of Stanford law school served in the Clinton administration as an assistant secretary for energy efficiency and renewable energy. He now heads climate change and energy initiatives at Google.org,...

In light of further actual and rumored appointments, Obama's future presidential administration is steadily emerging as a regime ominously packed with Obama insiders who promise to help roll out the carpet for the President-elect's radical anti-life and anti-family agenda. Media outlets recently named Arizona governor Janet Napolitano as Obama's probable choice for secretary of Homeland Security. An early Obama supporter and campaigner, Napolitano firmly established herself as an extreme abortion supporter by vetoing the partial birth abortion ban, and in one month she vetoed four anti-abortion bills. In 2005 NARAL warmly praised the governor for vetoing a bill that would...

Gov. Janet Napolitano's spokeswoman confirmed Thursday that U.S. Sen. John McCain (R-Phoenix) called to congratulate her on being the "top contender' for the job of Secretary of Homeland Security in President-elect Barack Obama's Cabinet. A release put out by McCain Thursday said: "Senator McCain called and congratulated Governor Janet Napolitano on her emergence as top contender for Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security. Senator McCain said 'Governor Napolitano's experience as the former U.S. Attorney for Arizona, Arizona's Attorney General, and as Governor warrants her rapid confirmation by the Senate and I hope she is quickly confirmed.' Senator McCain looks...

CHICAGO - Former President Bill Clinton has offered several concessions to help Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, his wife, become secretary of state, people familiar with President-elect Barack Obama's transition vetting process said Wednesday. Clinton has agreed to release the names of several major donors to his charitable foundation and will submit future foundation activities and paid speeches to a strict ethics review, said Democrats knowledgeable about the discussions.

Weeks before Barack Obama won the presidency, he met privately in Washington with his former Democratic rival, Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton of New York, and Latino political leaders who had fervently backed her bid. The cards were laid upon the table, according to one of the participants. The Hispanic leaders said they expected at least two Latinos to be named to an Obama Cabinet — meeting the standard set by President-elect Bill Clinton in 1992 — but preferred three. Of course, they also wanted sub-Cabinet-level posts. In return, Obama needed assurances that Hispanics — who had overwhelmingly voted for Clinton...

WASHINGTON – Barack Obama's campaign has approached Illinois Rep. Rahm Emanuel about possibly serving as White House chief of staff, officials said Thursday as the marathon presidential race entered its final, frenzied stretch with a Democratic tilt. The disclosure came as Republican John McCain, in need of a comeback, focused on pocketbook issues amid fresh signs of a recession. "Ohio is hurting now, people in Ohio are having trouble staying in their homes, keeping their jobs," he said as he set out on a two-day bus tour of the state.

SUNRISE, Florida (Reuters) – U.S. presidential candidate Barack Obama said on Wednesday he would include Republicans in his Cabinet if he wins the election. Obama, a Democratic senator from Illinois, also said he had "some pretty good ideas" about people he might tap for senior government jobs, though he emphasized he is focused for now on the final days of the campaign and takes nothing for granted. "There is a transition process -- that I'm not paying attention to on a day-to-day basis -- but that has been set up," Obama told ABC News in an interview. Obama said he...

...Chuck Schumer, along with Claire McCaskill and John Kerry, responded quickly with a letter to Condoleezza Rice asking her to prevent the deals from going forward until there is an oil-revenue sharing law. Both Schumer and Kerry are on the Senate Finance Committee; Kerry and McCaskill are both surrogates for Barack Obama, whose campaign has been going after John McCain for McCain's new, oil company-friendly position on offshore drilling. Here's the release along with the letter (which, weirdly, doesn't include McCaskill's name at the end of it). SCHUMER, KERRY & McCASKILL SEEK TO BLOCK BIG OIL’S NO-BID CONTRACTS IN IRAQ...

CongressNow: Possibilities Abound for Obama Cabinet August 26, 2008 By Louis Jacobson CongressNow Staff With Democrats having been out of the White House for eight years, there is no shortage of Cabinet-ready personnel for a President Barack Obama to choose from. Here are some names being floated for domestic Cabinet appointments. National security and economic posts are covered in other articles in this series. Attorney General. With revelations of an affair presumably taking widely touted former Sen. John Edwards (D-N.C.) out of the picture, the AG landscape is wide open. Eric Holder Jr., a member of Obama’s vice presidential vetting...

Diplomacy: Bill Richardson met Hugo Chavez Sunday ostensibly to help U.S. hostages held in Colombia by FARC terrorists. But Colombia doesn't want Chavez involved, so it's worth asking what Richardson's up to. By his engagement in private diplomatic initiatives, the governor of New Mexico seems to be running for secretary of state in the Cabinet of the candidate he has endorsed, Barack Obama. Nothing wrong with that, but let's be upfront: Richardson's aim doesn't seem entirely pure. Winning the release of U.S. hostages held for five years in Colombia's jungle would demonstrate his diplomatic chops. But because Richardson insists on...

If Barak Obama becomes the next president, what will his administration look like? What sort of political animals will be Obamanominated to serve in his cabinet? While this is just pure speculation on my part, I do have some clues. First, Obama isn't just liberal, he's very liberal. The left wing interest group Americans for Democratic Action scores him at 95 to 100%, while conservative group American Conservative Union grades him in the single digits. Expect such a liberal candidate to have an equally liberal agenda for governing, and Obama will be surrounding himself with other liberals and a few...