Obama's (dis)appointments / we must lead

OK, so I will do my best not to be cynical.

First I am relieved beyond words we do not have another Republican Administration to live through right now. Unfortunately we do have a Democratic Administration to deal with.

Obama promised change and change he will bring. Already we hear he is letting top scientists develop policy to fight global climate change. That right there is HUGE considering the past 8 years has truly been a war on science. Obama has appointed the right man to fix FEMA - the same guy who made it great under Bill Clinton. He has a few progressives scattered here and there and I am thankful for that. He is definitely a change from the past 8 years.

Before I get into his team let me just say that it is OUR responsibility to let him know and our other representatives know what we think about the decisions he and they make. I am personally holding judgement until we see what policies he pursues. The other day Obama responded to criticism that he is hiring all insiders. Many progressives are asking where is the change? Obama said not to worry, that HE is the change. He said that he has chosen people with experience and mixed them with new thinking. So we shall see, so far I am trusting Obama's judgement but I think it will be super important for the American people to continue to push him, especially if we want to end the wars.

So briefly his team of (dis)appointments. I say that because he has chosen people who have been at the center of the bad policies of late, but perhaps they have told Obama they understand where they went wrong and they are willing to change, we shall see. I must say that I am not surprised by his choices. During the primaries I told people who loved Hilary but hated Obama that in fact their administrations would look VERY similar.

So Secretary of State - Hilary Clinton. For me a major bummer since her hawkishness on foreign policy was the original reason I supported Obama over her. Talking about "obliterating Iran" and all. But she is well known throughout the world , she must have asked for the job, and she deserves to have her choice as runner up. But what exactly is her foreign policy experience? Certainly there were better choices out there.

Keeping Sec of Defense Gates - well he wants no time table in Iraq, a major surge in Afghanistan, and wants a new arsenal of nuclear weapons. Boo. This guy should get the boot. And seems like he may have worked with the Republicans and Iranians to screw Carter over on the hostage deal. And so many on Obama's policy team are hawks and were champions of the Iraq war. Madaline Allbright of course said killing 500,000 Iraqi children with sanctions was a price worth paying to keep Saddam under control.

His economic team were champions of deregulation and wall street and have in fact helped cause financial crisis in Russia, Asia, and here at home. I guess if they broke it at least they are familiar with it. But to me these guys should go too.

And his intelligence crew were champions of warrentless wire tapping, extraordinary rendition, and torture.

Not to be negative but we do need to watch what kind of influence these guys will have on policy or if it is true that Obama is gonna draw on their experience but lead them in a new direction.

Most important to me is that we end the wars. I think with the crowd he is surrounding himself with we will need to push him as an anti-war movement to actually bring these wars to an end.