Obama's Cons

While the term "Obamacon" has become a self-congratulatory term for liberal pundits to refer to conservative intellectuals who have "come over to their side" and voiced support for President-elect Obama, a more needed reference at this point is to "Obama's Cons"- the conventional Cabinet members Obama has appointed.  Obama has done a superb job of assembling a capable and experienced group of individuals to help the US recover from a historically harrowing year.  However, in doing so he has disappointed many of the progressives who helped to jump-start his campaign in its early stages.  Predictably, his early emphasis on stoking the enthusiasms of college students and grass-roots activists has given way to corporate and establishment pandering.  

But the foreseeable shift from focusing on empowering a grass-roots campaign in hopes of toppling Hillary to searching for experienced  high-level officials did not have to take as heinously conventional a form as it did.  Authority and validity in our political system are deeply enough tied to institutional experience and conventional forms of praise and reward that many people felt it would have been irresponsible not to seek such traits in Cabinet members.  Obama's lack of imagination and courage in bending those expectations was frustrating though.  His method of finding and hiring the biggest names that would give his fan base reason for recognition and support was more Brian Cashman than it was Theo Epstein (Theo would have had the courage to drag along some of the in-house organizers and difference-makers that gave us hope early on, taunts of crony-ism be damned [and if there's one area we can easily link Theo to Obama, it's how much the media loves them]).  It was more (deep breath...you can write it, Bucky...just get it over with...SOUL WRITHING IN ANGUISH!!!) Al Davis (sea creature-esque owner of the Raiders who perennially ruins his franchise's chances by signing mediocre big-name players) than Scott Pioli (savvy personnel architect of the Patriots dynasty.  

So far, things have been more The Best and the Brightest than Team of Rivals.  There is no good way to mean that, unless you are putting together a Trivia Bowl team- so maybe we can just hand Summers his t-shirt, mug, gift-certificate etc. and send him on his merry way?  Didn't think so.  

The most striking example of the "Obama's Cons" phenomenon has to be Robert Gates being retained as Secretary of Defense.  Did I miss the part during those huge campaign rallies where Obama pledged to shift our national security efforts away from the draining, unpopular occupation of Iraq by...retaining one of the men Bush chose to run the war?  Was there a mistranslation that had crowds in Germany waving their lighters at the thought of a hold-over running the department responsible for one of the most fundamental changes everyone was asked to believe in?  There should be a hue and of outcry over the pure slap-in-the-face symbolism of this decision to the majority of the country that has at least in opinion joined the anti-Iraq-war movement.  The lack thereof just shows to what an extent we have come to accept the logic of the status-quo and thereby disempower ourselves as believers in the possibility of transformative change in our country.  

...And for the sake of ending on a more upbeat note, check out this courageous and inspiring link to a story in BusinessWeek (of all places) about an act of creative disruption at which I am still marveling: http://www.businessweek.com/ap/financialnews/D958H33G1.htm?chan=top+news_top+news+index+-+temp_news+++analysis