it means we want a country where the concerns of all of us who were accused of making everything terrible by pointing out that things were kind of terrible are actually listened to and considered rather than dismissed.  This is not a time to dismiss wide swaths of Americans, this is a time to make the case to them that you’re doing the right thing.

I think we’ll just have to get more offensive, in order to be listened to.

This is very related.

I didn’t hear him dismissing the views of the progressive side so much as pointing out the enormous scope of what needs to get fixed. I agree that the “this is not the time” phrasing was beyond poor, and given that “we’re in charge now, trust us and stop asking questions” was the motto of the whole Bush administration, you’re not being oversensitive to hear that as a possible dog whistle.

On the other hand, I think a good point can be made that we ought to at least let the new administration GET in charge before we pile on about how they aren’t doing enough to fix things.

Well, he’s asking liberals and progressives not to “draw conclusions,” which is fair to a point. I think he’s suggesting that, unlike the last 8 years, the guy in the Oval Office will actually be running the show.

But if he’s chiding Obama’s supporters for demanding accountability and keeping on Obama’s arse, tough luck. From what I’ve seen with sites like change.gov, though, they seem to be very open to criticism.

The message that concerns me here is “After all, he was elected to be the president of all the people - not just those on the left.” This is technically true, but pracically he’s not the President of all the people, any more than Prince Bush was the President of most of the people here. There’s a wide swath of neoCons and Know-Nothings who’ll be spending the next four years trying to undermine Obama. And given that situation, Steve Hildebrand has to understand that “this is not a time” to dismiss one’s allies.

This is technically true, but pracically he’s not the President of all the people, any more than Prince Bush was the President of most of the people here.

The key here is making every opportunity to extend an open hand to the neocons and know-nothings.  That way, it only Obama look more grown-up when they throw a tantrum and swat it back in his face.  You don’t make progress by marginalizing the other guy, you make him marginalize himself.

Hmm-hmm. I dunno, I’m torn. On the one hand, I want to trust Obama, give him a fair chance, etc. On the other hand, I’m very much not pleased about the association with “Women can’t do science and math because they have ovaries”. I’m fairly certain that Obama isn’t about to start taking advice from “Blacks can’t do science and math because they have melanin”, so why this diss to the women? I’m not trying to be all PUMA here, but I find it flabergasting that there wasn’t an equally (or better) qualified person that doesn’t have shockingly uneducated, insular, misogynist viewpoints.

Ellen - Obama is not going to be particularly good on women’s issues and on gay rights.  He’ll be vastly better than any GOP president would be if for no other reason than not trying to roll things back, but his priorities are going to be in other areas.  Fortunately there is hope for leadership from congress on those issues and Obama won’t fight against good legislation.

Sorry to be a bummer, but come on. Progressives were rooked. He has, and had, no intention of doing anything to advance a progressive agenda, other than perhaps some touchy-feely racial rhetoric and maybe a feeble pass at health care. He’s a centrist Democrat at heart, that’s how he’ll govern, and you guys were a convenient source of energy and cash when he needed both. Your payback for that work will be bitterness and ashes.

Are you implying that criticism of our next president’s policies and job performance amounts to undermining him?

So far, the undermining is coming more in the form of grand conspiracy theories that all prove that Obama isn’t actually a citizen.  Because, of course, you don’t need a birth certificate to get a passport or a Social Security card, and you certainly don’t need to show you’re a citizen to get a job with a law firm or at the University of Chicago, so it makes perfect sense that Obama would have gotten all the way to the presidency without a single person checking to make sure he really was born here.  And it makes even more sense that his mother initiated a vast conspiracy almost 50 years ago on the off-chance that the biracial son of an African immigrant might someday become president.

Actually, though some of us might not like it, Mr Obama will be president of all the American people.  I didn’t vote for him, and I didn’t want him to win, but it’s pretty immature to suggest that he won’t be “my” president.

Well, you’ll be an anomoly amongst conservatives, then.

And you do understand the difference between “technically” and “practically,” right Dana?

Undermine?  Are you implying that criticism of our next president’s policies and job performance amounts to undermining him?

Not at all. Again, I’m talking about very practical measures that have little to do with policy and job performance and very much to do with what was once called “the politics of personal destruction.” As noted above, I’m all for critiquing “my” President (in a way that Bush supporters were unable to do with theirs) on issues of substance—that’s a citizen’s duty. But we already see the usual right-wing panoply of race-baiting, conspiracy theories, and “liberal lifestyle” critiques crawling out of the woodwork.

On topic, the article read to me more like, “Okay, we gave you Brennan, but don’t expect every decision we make to be to your liking.”  And, yes, I think the heat they’re getting right now is for the economic team and nominating people like Rubin and Summers who helped inflate the bubble in the first place, which is something I wish they’d think about rather than dismissing the “left.”

Undermine?  Are you implying that criticism of our next president’s policies and job performance amounts to undermining him?

It often has seemed to us that conservative criticisms of Obama are, to be charitable, completely & absurdly insane.

In addition, there are many memes (in the sense of unreflective mass beliefs) being spread about him which would seem to have no possible purpose beyond rendering Obama toxic to uneducated people. Such as the claim that Obama is not a US citizen.

Example of reasonable Conservative criticism of Obama.

On topic, the article read to me more like, “Okay, we gave you Brennan, but don’t expect every decision we make to be to your liking.”

Yeah, I do think some progressives need to hear this, even if most reality-based liberals knew it going in (to imagine, as DinD does, that they didn’t is typical conservative fantasy). It seems that this stage of the game—for both the Obama team and the grassroots liberals and progressives who support them—is about setting limits and drawing lines when it comes to policy.

Well, I can’t argue with the points you raise; it’s true, you should always be suspicious when someone says that we shouldn’t be discussing something *now*. It usually means that they’re hoping the publicity will blow over and it won’t be discussed at all.

But specifically, cabinet positions? Cabinet positions aren’t policy. They can be signs of policy, but they aren’t policy. It won’t help to get worked up over certain people in cabinet positions unless/until we know what those people will do.

(Which is not to say “don’t criticize”, but keep in mind that you don’t have all the information you need.)

What I don’t like is the implied line being drawn between “progressive” and “best qualified”. It may be true that—because of years of stupidity from both republicans and democrats (much more from republicans, but nevertheless) progressives of nominatable age don’t have a lot of experience running big agencies. But that’s a reason to start getting them into the pipeline, not to diss them.

I’m in agreement with TomHilton at 11:28.  Hildebrand’s letter basically gives Obama centrist positioning, without any bad centrist substance.  We should respond by bitching and moaning, and then giggle.

Well….ummmm….urrrr, he’s not President yet.  I think we have a case of prematurely bunched undies here.

First of all, the progressive agenda will be handled by Congress, not the President.  And they are in a position to do so very nicely.  He may have to even restrain it a bit so he doesn’t get his ass handed to him like Clinton did in 1994.

For me, all Obama has to do the first two years is:  a) not be George Bush and b) not appoint anti-choice judges.  Other than that we have a hole to dig out of and the rest of the stuff will just have to wait.

Hildebrand: This is not a time for the left wing of our Party to draw conclusions about the Cabinet and White House appointments that President-Elect Obama is making.

I interpreted this not as “Don’t question Obama’s supreme brilliance and awesomeitude” but as “Let’s actually see how well these people do their jobs before we tear them down.” Like Jesse pointed out the other day, this administration hasn’t even begun yet.

I’m with Ms Kate. The cabinet members should have both progressive ideals and, you know, actual experience doing a similar job. I agree with everything I think, but I can acknowledge that I’d make a rotten president, in large part because I would not know how to compromise and work with people who didn’t share my ideology.

I think we should all listen to Ms Kate.

Beyond that I think there are two considerations about the “left” that should be mentioned.
1)  Many of the people targeted by Hildebrand, as somewhat been mentioned above, are know-nothings dressed up for the 21st century. 

2)  I think pretty much everything Obama does is about maintaining a global consensus and coalition to be an effective policy-maker.

I didn’t hear him dismissing the views of the progressive side so much as pointing out the enormous scope of what needs to get fixed.

The thing is, progressives would like to be part of fixing those things—especially those things that we knew needed fixing a long time ago.

It’s like we’re being chastised for obsessing about which towels to buy, when what we need to do is replace the pipes and install a new shower stall. What we really want is to have some input into what kind of pipe we use, who the plumber is, and whether we end up with a shower stall or a bathtub. We’ll be paying for it too, and will have to use whichever bathing facility we end up with. (And we’re the ones who noticed that the current system is old, cracked, and leaking. Is it possible that I’ve pushed this metaphor too far?)

However, in the pipeline does not mean running the show.  It means learning how to administer a large bureacracy from a deputy position if you lack the executive experience.  Great ideas and progressive orientation are nice to have, but should not earn you a top job if that is all you have to offer.

and

<blockquote> On the other hand, while all the pissing and moaning from liberals about Obama may be substantively nonsense, they may also be strategically helpful.  I would just urge the people doing the pissing and moaning not to make the mistake of believing their own rhetoric.  </blockquote

Yeah. I agree.

Push the agenda. Press Obama to be more progressive. But don’t make it personal and don’t write him off because he’s not CURRENTLY doing what you want him to do. He’s got other pressures as well, and we have to articulate and press our agenda at least as well as other factions.

Don’t forget, the meme that Democrats must reject the left wing is the media’s absolute favorite of all time, followed only by the idea that The Clintons Are Bad People.

Conventional wisdom mongers Politico are on the case to tell us all about how Obama is making those Dirty Fucking Hippies lose their shit without, um, much evidence at all.  Did anyone really think that Obama was planning to unilaterally withdraw troops from Iraq on Inauguration Day instead of doing what he’s been saying he was going to do for a year and a half, which was to begin a withdrawal plan?

Sorry for the length of this, but some hard things have to be said.

Sorry to be a bummer, but come on. Progressives were rooked. He has, and had, no intention of doing anything to advance a progressive agenda, other than perhaps some touchy-feely racial rhetoric and maybe a feeble pass at health care. He’s a centrist Democrat at heart, that’s how he’ll govern, and you guys were a convenient source of energy and cash when he needed both. Your payback for that work will be bitterness and ashes.

I’m afraid that Dan in Denver might be right.  Has Obama made a single visibly and obviously progressive/left appointment to any of his key positions yet?  Anyone?  Not one stands out.  And in doing so he buys into a right-wing and so-called centrist lie-meme that has become Holy Writ: there is no such thing as a competent progressive, that their ideas are unrealistic fairy dust and it’s best to leave governance to the adults who are only found in the centre and on the right.

Nobody’s asking Obama to turn over his government to the left wing of the party.  They’re asking that he show some confidence in his left as a viable source of ideas, energy and administrative competence within the administrative branch at a decision-making level.  Freezing them out—and then smoothly telling them “trust me”—is a pretty clear statement that (a) he simply doesn’t think progressive ideas important and (b) he is utterly confident that he will pay no penalty on the left for jerking them around the way that GOPers know they have to give some things to the right, Or Else.

I think that people are right to say “wait a bit and give him a chance”.  They are also very right to say, “hey, hang on ... how come the centre and right of the party aren’t being told to wait?  how come they’re getting each and every key position?”.  Don’t forget that Obama’s very first appointment, his chief of staff, is a guy who made his bones in part on sucking the energy and money and field work and achievements out of the progressive left while simultaneously telling them to STFU when it came to policy and tactics within the Congress.  Obvious messages ain’t accidents.

Much as I hate to disagree with the amiable and wise Ms Kate I do strongly disagree with this:

The individuals get the glory and may not be the people we would ideally like to see, but the teams are packed with progressives who have strong input on policy, even if they lack interest or lack experience in running the show.

First: Experience is a good thing, but it is not the sole determinative factor.  If it were we would be kvetching about President-Elect McCain, no?  There is nothing to stop Obama from appointing a clear progressive who is… well, like himself in that the person is smart is a whip and to be surrounded by first-rate people with lots of experience.  Are we to accept that a formidable combination of brains + character + good judgment are excellent qualifications for the Oval Office, but not enough for a cabinet position?

Second: It implicitly accepts that all possible high-profile progressive candidates “lack experience in running the show”.  I don’t accept that what Obama does: that there ain’t a progressive in America worthy of a senior cabinet position.

Third: It implicitly accepts that all possible high-profile progressive candidates “lack interest ...  in running the show”.  We have heard that one before: Remember `women don’t want to be executives, their priority is their families, so why promote them [above the glass ceiling]’?  Condescending garbage then, condescending garbage now.

Fourth: A supporting role is just that: a supporting role.  The real red meat of power in the executive branch lies in the decision-making positions, and the choicest cuts of those are the high-profile positions.  The progressives have been told to do with old soup and be patient and grateful.

Fifth: It ensures that centrism will continue to rule the day.  Even if a viable progressive package comes up the pipe it can be killed without problem.  And if it’s a success all the kudos will be reaped by the centrists, proving that Only They within the Democratic party can handle governance.

Sixth: Let’s not forget that part of this is just a really, really high-level of the bullshit about management that one sees in more pedestrian workplaces which are resistant to positive change: You can’t be hired to be management unless you have management experience.  But how can one get management experience unless you are promoted to management.

There is nothing to stop Obama from appointing a clear progressive who is… well, like himself in that the person is smart is a whip and to be surrounded by first-rate people with lots of experience.

Okay, seeker—who would you rather have seen as Secretary of Health and Human Services than Tom Daschle?  Name names, please.

“Bureaucratic solutions to problems of practice will always fail because effective teaching is not routine, students are not passive, and questions of practice are not simple, predictable, or standardized. Consequently, instructional decisions cannot be formulated on high then packaged and handed down to teachers.”

This person would be phenomenal as an activist or an administrator of a single school, in a position where she can effect change and show the rest of us what alternative methods of education can do for kids.  As Secretary of Education, she’d be a complete disaster.

First, it is a good idea to let Obama be inaugurated and govern for a few months before we start drawing big conclusions.

Secondly, please please PLEASE don’t lwt us fall into the “not a dimes worth of difference” crap that made the 2000 election close enough for Bush to muddy the waters in Florida and get appointed by SCOTUS.

I liked the Slate piece about how Defense Secretary Gates wants us to stop enriching defense contractors selling Cold War superweapons we don’t need anymore.  If Fred Kaplan’s article is right about what Gates wants, no complaints from me on that one.

I will freely concede that my knowledge of dynamic progressive thinkers and elected officials in the USA isn’t what it should be, especially those within academia.  I leave it to you to decide whether or not that undermines my point, or just my ability to make it.  Is it your position that there isn’t a single progressive worthy of such a high-profile cabinet appointment?

As for those who I am aware of, I would consider Jim Hightower, Russ Feingold, Bernie Sanders, Rush Holt, Sherrod Brown, Kathleen Sebelius and Howard Dean.  None of these are without flaw, but the same can be said of the “got the whole cookie jar!” appointments from the centre and the right. 

And I think that where Tom Daschle is concerned we should look to the man’s experience ... and let him run a lemonade stand.  (He wouldn’t actually make any lemonade.  He would fret at length about whether or not people really wanted cool drinks on hot days, even when people walked by his stand saying, “man, I could sure use something cold right about now!”.)

Ms. Kate, I’ve never seen you set up a straw man before!  At at no time did I suggest that we appoint somebody for “based on their great progressive ideas alone”.  I specifically mandated “a formidable combination of brains + character + good judgment”. 

I pose to you the same question that I posed to Mnemosyne: “Is it your position that there isn’t a single progressive worthy of such a high-profile cabinet appointment?”  Honestly, do the two of you, powerful and balanced intellects both, honestly accept what is effectively a DLC-GOP meme: that progressive ideals and policy positions aren’t effective for America to the point that they can’t be trusted with any of the most important levers?

Ms. Kate, I was making the comparison to provide a metaphor, not a ground rule.  Tom Daschle has never been a governor or a cabinet secretary, but he’s the new Sec. of HHS, for example, which goes to my point that there seem to be different, higher standards for those on the right than those applied for the centre and left.

Wow.  BAD typo.  Should read “there seem to be different, higher standards for those on the left than those applied for the centre and right. “

I leave it to you to decide whether or not that undermines my point, or just my ability to make it.  Is it your position that there isn’t a single progressive worthy of such a high-profile cabinet appointment?

Since your claim is that Daschle is unqualified to be in charge of HHS, it’s pretty disingenuous of you to simultaneously claim that you don’t know enough about the issue, don’t you think?

I’m also not sure why you think a guy who keeps talking about “progressive solutions to health care” is taking the conservative position.  Again, I’ve got to assume at this point that you have no idea what you’re talking about.  Either that, or you’ve absorbed a lot of talk about how Daschle is a “centrist” without actually looking at his positions on health care or how long he’s been working on health care policy.

Is it your position that there isn’t a single progressive worthy of such a high-profile cabinet appointment?

Is it your position that only strong progressives should be considered for high-profile cabinet positions regardless of other qualifications?

The problem is that Obama isn’t nominating secretaries based managerial skills. Didn’t we learn in the primary that Hillary was a terrible executive? She couldn’t control her staff, wasn’t able to efficiently make important decisions, and finished the race with millions of dollars of debt. If she can’t manage a couple hundred handpicked staffers, how will she manage the tens of thousands at State? I hope she does great but her nomination stands out from Obama’s narrative on his picks.

Seeker has some excellent points.

Basically, I think liberals, leftists, & pro-Obama conservatives should all just go ahead. We should all pressure Obama to do the things we elected him to do! We should criticize him, reasonably, if we think he isn’t living up to his potential. If he wants to push back against entrenched elements in the government, having some controversy could actually help him.

There’s that story about FDR, that people petitioned him about starting works programs, in the horrible job market combined with the nasty ecological mess. FDR listened to them and said something like, “That sounds like a great idea. Now you all need to go out and make me do it.” I think that concept applies here.

Is it your position that only strong progressives should be considered for high-profile cabinet positions regardless of other qualifications?

Wow, first Ms Kate, now you.  Two first-rate minds propping up straw men, something normally miles beneath both of you.  There is no absent disingenuousness that way that you can read my posts as advocating that “only strong only progressives should be considered’.  They can only be read as asking that they not be excluded, which, thus far, seems to be the rule.  You used that particular little straw man to rather obviously avoid the question and I’m afraid that, between friends, I need repeat it: Is it your position that there isn’t a single progressive worthy of such a high-profile cabinet appointment?  If it is then kindly have the bottle to say so rather than hiding behind misreading of my posts.

I don’t want to threadjack and make this about me.  Some of your points about my points need addressing, though, because they address the unanswered question:

* I said that I wished that my knowledge wasn’t as good as I wanted it to be.  (The day that I think that I know everything about everything is the day that I apply for a job at Red State.)  I know enough to have an opinion and noticing the complete lack of strong progressives means, at best, that I’m not so thick that I can’t figure out that no progressives are being appointed.  I did provide a good list of names of competent progressives, whilst admitting that I knew of more.  I note that you didn’t address any of of these proposed picks, preferring to pretend that on my limited disclaimer was a complete abdication.

* You asked about Daschle and I gave you an honest opinion.  Whoever steers Obama’s health care initiatives through the Congress will need a backbone made of pressed steel, and there is nothing in that gentleman’s career which indicates that he has that strength.  He had the chance to be a tough opponent to Bush at his worst and instead gave a pretty damned convincing demonstration of a mime doing a marshmallow.

In the end, whatever debate you have with me can’t get away from the issue being debated: why are progressives shut out?  Why are they the only ones considered not smart enough to be at the adult table?

(Repeats to self:  “The Preview is my friend, I will love my friend”.)

“There is no [way] absent disingenuousness…”

“...whilst admitting that I [wish I personally] knew of more”.

You advocates of Romanian Communism might wish to import Nicolae Ceausescu’s zombie corpse to The Heartland of the USA of America by making Bill Ayers the Secretary of Defense, or whatnot, but even your precious black J*sus isn’t as Maoist as the DEMONcrap base, so you can just kiss the rearward quadrant of my star-spangled assless chaps!  North America is an extreme-Right wing country that doesn’t buy your socialist demands for health care, high school education or highway systems, so GET OVER IT!

I think the basic conflict here is this: the people who are kvetching want progressive policies carried out by people who are labeled progressive; Obama wants to re-define progressive policies as pragmatic, ‘bipartisan’, and ‘centrist’.  That’s why the two camps are inherently at cross-purposes even before Obama has taken office. 

Given the conflict, I’m on Obama’s side.  Getting people labeled ‘progressive’ in positions of power makes us feel good; re-defining progressive policies as the mainstream (mirroring what Reagan did for right-wing policies) puts us in position to dominate the ideological and political landscape for decades to come.

You advocates of Romanian Communism might wish to import Nicolae Ceausescu’s zombie corpse to The Heartland of the USA of America

Hmmm…actually, given Romania’s absolutist laws against birth control and abortion under Ceausescu, I think he’s more ideologically compatible with the Republicans.

Remember: Operation Rescue rhymes with Nicolae Ceausescu.

Tom Hilton makes a good point, but it does raise a question: If Obama is genuinely committed to “re-define progressive policies as pragmatic, ‘bipartisan’, and ‘centrist’” then:

(A) Why not appoint even one “out” progressive”?  It would go a long way to making progressive notions mainstream.  If you treat progressive ideas and ideals as something poisonous that need be put forward under another hat the you have impliedly accepted a false maxim that such ideas have no traction—and can gain no traction—with the American public.

This is where the false dichotomy of the Nader choice comes in.  Progressives shouldn’t say “to hell with this” and vote for the first no-hoper that comes along.  They should model themselves on the Christian right and take over the machinery of the party from the ground up so that when the next corporate sellout wants to run for Congress or the Senate they can say “to hell with <i>you” and pick somebody equally competent and more in tune with their ideals.  They should aim for a Democratic party where its elected officials are as scared of offending the progressives as the GOPers are of offending the godbags.  Progressives will never, ever exercise the control that the fundamentalists do… but at least they won’t be ignored.  And that’s what this little debate is about isn’t it?  The progressives aren’t bitching that the USA isn’t Sweden yet.  They’re bitching—correctly— because they’ve been treated as disposable, irrelevant and not worthy of consideration at the levels that matter most.

Some other folks have given advice which would have been wise in pretty much every other context: be patient, give the guy a chance, trust a man who has shown himself to be trustworth... Valid points, all.  But progressives are equally entitled to ask, “why are we the only ones of whom this is being asked?”.

Obama is appointing centrists to high level positions to give himself cover so he can govern from the left.

Obama is appointing centrists to high level positions to give himself cover so he can govern from the left.

If I may ask politely, Ben D., would you be so kind as to substantiate that statement without wishful thinking?

And if it were true, is it a valid strategy?  Call the American Right what you will the fact is that they’re policy-driven lunatics.  If, for example, Obama seeks to expand health care, or cut out-of-control defence spending, or repeal the global gag rule, or expand sex-ed, or whatever or other sane policy he wishes, then the Right will froth just the same and the bought media will yelp in supportive unison regardless of who the messenger is.  There is something to be said for being hanged for a sheep rather than a lamb.  On top of that isn’t it a cardinal rule in management that if you want to push through a new idea then you pick somebody who is invested in the new idea, rather than an old-schooler who might be—and probably is—ambivalent about it in the first place?

If I may ask politely, Ben D., would you be so kind as to substantiate that statement without wishful thinking?

Because he won running as the most liberal victorious Democrat since the 60s, so I fail to see why he would govern differently from the way he campaigned and won.

Really, the only pick I have a big problem with is Hillary. Not because I foam at the mouth about TEH CLINTONS, either, I don’t. I like Hillary on everything BUT foreign policy. I can’t figure out that choice except that it was a reward for her coming through for him in Florida, so she named her price—the most prestigious cabinet position.

Maybe I am engaging in wishful thinking. But maybe you’re being unnecessarily pessimistic. We don’t know until he governs, first. If by July 2009 it is clear he is governing through soulless 1990s-style triangulation then I’ll be pissed right along with you. So far he said he is going to go ahead with a big public works project and massive investment in green jobs, along with beginning to end the Iraq War finally and starting in on universal health care—none of those things are DLC-ish in my mind.

And Summers—well, yeah, Summers is an asshole. But he will be in charge of economic policy not say, the Department of Education. I would have a bigger reason to livid were he in charge of that!

I also know he is a fan of Saul Alinsky (the father of community organizing), and Alisnky had a great quote that basically said the real revolutionary who gets things done isn’t the hippie out in the street protesting—he’s the guy inside the government in a suit and tie getting progressive policies through. He might be thinking along those lines.

Why not appoint even one “out” progressive”?  It would go a long way to making progressive notions mainstream.  If you treat progressive ideas and ideals as something poisonous that need be put forward under another hat the you have impliedly accepted a false maxim that such ideas have no traction—and can gain no traction—with the American public.

Setting aside the fact that this is factually incorrect (does the name ‘Melody Barnes’ ring a bell? or the title ‘Domestic Policy Advisor’?), you’re completely missing the point: it’s not about rehabilitating the label; it’s about popularizing the reality.  Appointing a whole team of ‘out’ progressives would achieve a lot in rehabilitating the progressive label, but would hinder the enactment of progressive policies.  So which is more important to you: the label, or the reality?

Isn’t it a little odd to be saying that the appointment of centrists is really a clever plot to mainstream progressive ideals?  Isn’t it more likely that you just got cut by Occam’s razor: the appointment of centrists means centrist policies?

I think you’re probably the one who shouldn’t be playing with razors here.  Isn’t it a little odd to conclude that the appointment of centrists is really a clever plot to subvert the progressive agenda he has articulated consistently for the last two years (an agenda that, by the way, grew more assertively progressive after the election)?  How on earth does your interpretation make any sense at all?

Because he won running as the most liberal victorious Democrat since the 60s, so I fail to see why he would govern differently from the way he campaigned and won.
...
Maybe I am engaging in wishful thinking. But maybe you’re being unnecessarily pessimistic. We don’t know until he governs, first. If by July 2009 it is clear he is governing through soulless 1990s-style triangulation then I’ll be pissed right along with you.

Okay, Ben D.  Noted, pondered, and agreed.  Thanks.

Melody Barnes

Thanks for that, one of the inadequacies in my knowledge that I noted earlier.  Unfortunately for your position it does rather go to prove the upthread point that I made in the discussion with Ms. Kate: it is an advisory position for a woman (who looks smart as all hell, judging by C-Span) who serves solely at the pleasure of the President, is not a cabinet appointee, and, iirc, her position doesn’t require Senate confirmation.  Having a progressive in an (important) position that nobody but policy wonks ever much heard of is hardly the sort of public acknowledgment of progressivism that we are talking about.

it’s not about rehabilitating the label; it’s about popularizing the reality.  Appointing a whole team of ‘out’ progressives would achieve a lot in rehabilitating the progressive label, but would hinder the enactment of progressive policies.  So which is more important to you: the label, or the reality?

What’s more important to you?  Scoring a point or asking yourself “why can’t we have both?”.  Labels have impacts.  Words mean things.  The GOP was able to wrestle control of the debate from the Democrats for years upon years in part by turning “liberal” into a pejorative, and slapping it onto any idea they didn’t like.  If we take the notion that we believe in the policies that the word “progressive” represents then why are we running like scared deer from even using the goddamned word?

And would folks stop pretending that I am on a soapbox screaming for “a whole team”.  I never said that, period.  I said it was telling and wrong that he didn’t even appoint one to cabinet.  Would we be saying that Obama really believes in Hispanic issues if he didn’t a single one to cabinet?  Or saying that Obama really cherishes gender equality if his cabinet was all male?  To even pose the questions is to answer them.  So why does he get cut slack on progressives?  Why are they the magic no-go zone for even admitting that they’re there?

Isn’t it a little odd to conclude that the appointment of centrists is really a clever plot to subvert the progressive agenda

Plot!  Subvert!  Apparently you do grasp that labels are useful tools to diminish ideas that you don’t like.  I didn’t say that Obama was twirling his moustaches trying to subvert goodness by tying Tess Trueheart to the Amtrak rails.  I said that every single major cabinet appointment has gone to centrists or overt or quiet Republicans.  Every.  One.  That’s not about subverting the progressives, it’s about ignoring them. 

I think that we are entitled to judge Obama by his actions, no?  Why are people on a progressive blog so bloody damned defensive about the relatively undramatic assertion that a president-elect who doesn’t appoint a single “out” progressive to cabinet doesn’t have much interest in implementing progressive policies?  If he considers even the idea of progressives so radioactive that he dare not appoint one then how likely is he to stand up for those policies?  Ben D. is right, he’s entitled to actually start to govern.  But his supporters are entitled to ask why one of his key, committed, effective and growing constituencies is completely blocked from the Big Table.

Thanks for that, one of the inadequacies in my knowledge that I noted earlier.  Unfortunately for your position it does rather go to prove the upthread point that I made in the discussion with Ms. Kate: it is an advisory position for a woman (who looks smart as all hell, judging by C-Span) who serves solely at the pleasure of the President, is not a cabinet appointee, and, iirc, her position doesn’t require Senate confirmation.  Having a progressive in an (important) position that nobody but policy wonks ever much heard of is hardly the sort of public acknowledgment of progressivism that we are talking about.

Correction: the sort of public acknowledgment of progressivism that you are talking about.  I don’t give a flying fuck about ‘public acknowledgment; I care about policy.

Seeker, all I can say is that I am not propping up strawmen here.  I am way closer to some of this than I am at liberty to explain right now.

Being a progressive does not mean that somebody lacks the experience to run a large bureaucracy; however, one must be able to manage a large bureacracy or their intentions and point of view become rapidly irrelevant. You cannot make policy if you are unable to implement policy and run your department. Part of the problem with W’s disasters was the appointees who were buddies, friends, and idealogues and utterly lacked relevant ability to actually perform the duties of their office. 

This is one of the reasons why the right wing next attempted to destroy the internal career functions of many of these departments - they were ignoring the incompetent ideologues at the top and going about their business and getting things done anyway.

Seeker, I was going to respond to you, but Tom covered what I was going to say:

I think the basic conflict here is this: the people who are kvetching want progressive policies carried out by people who are labeled progressive; Obama wants to re-define progressive policies as pragmatic, ‘bipartisan’, and ‘centrist’.  That’s why the two camps are inherently at cross-purposes even before Obama has taken office.

Take a look at this article by John Harwood on CNBC, and this post by publius on Obsidian Wings.  By pushing progressive policies while publicly disdaining the “left,” Obama’s pulling a pretty clever sleight-of-hand.  He’s making you think that workers’ rights and health care reform are center-right positions in this country.  Even better, Obama’s getting the idiots at Clownhall to believe it, too.

If the price of getting progressive policies passed is for Obama to publicly bash the DFH’s while making all of the policy decisions that said DFH’s have been begging for, I’ll put on my headgear and take a few punches.

Even if I concede the points of Tom Hilton at 1737 and Ms Kate at 1751 (and I have no reason not to), they are valid points which don’t address my point(s) regarding the fact that progressives are the one part of Obama’s coalition who have been overtly snubbed for all cabinet and decision-making senior staff positions.

Ms Kate, I asked why not even one cabinet position can be found for an overt progressive.  Your response?  We need to avoid the stupidity of the Bush years where ideologues and cronies weren’t able to handle their jobs and disasters resulted.  The response not only impliedly admits that no overt progressive is “able to manage a large bureaucracy” it relies on such an assertion.

Tom Hilton’s post says that he doesn’t give a “flying fuck about ‘public acknowledgment’” but cares “about policy”.  Again, it begs the question of how a given policy can make its way through cabinet and gain and maintain public and congressional support if without any “public acknowledgement” that the progressive policies have merit.  There is nothing in your posts to date which indicates to me that you are so naive as to believe that policies that a president has symbolically noted are not important to him still have a hope in hell of becoming important to the congress.  They will look to what the president has made symbolically clear: the matters he has indicated are important to him will be attended to, the matters he has indicated are unimportant will be forever put aside, secure in the knowledge that there is no political downside on ignoring something that 1600 has said just ain’t that important.

Neither of you has addressed the simple, small, but symbolic—and probably practical—point: People read messages.  People look to what presidents do and who they choose to lead as indicators of which things are important to that president and which things aren’t.  Leave aside the blunt and obvious point that with no progressive in cabinet then who will advocate progressive policies at this most important of tables?  Symbolism is disproportionately important in politics and Obama has made a very important symbolic statement with his choices.  Ah, but what if he’s the main progressive voice, as Ben D noted about his record?  That might be so, one wishes to concede.  One wants very badly to believe that Obama will be the progressive driver at the cabinet table.  But that sort of wishful thinking is given a right kicking by the fact that Obama isn’t sending that message, is he?  He’s getting his deputy national campaign director to write to progressives in Huffpo telling them to, basically, STFU, that it’s “not a time for the left wing of our Party to draw conclusions about the Cabinet and White House appointments that President-Elect Obama is making”.  Okay for the centre and the right to draw conclusions. Go ahead. Okay for them to get cabinet posts, yessirree.  But the progressives?  Shut.  The.  Fuck.  Up.  (Truth be told, I might not even have gotten this annoyed had it not been for sending such a prominent staffer out to take the one group not invited to High Table to task.  “Yeah, everybody else has been fed but you, but who he hell are you to complain about being hungry?”  Sorry, but when the one group left it is given a scolding about its impertinence at the snub then the proper - and only - political response is to snarl back, even to your friends.  The last message that the left wants to send to a Dem president is that it will be supine.  LBJ was the most successful majority leader in history simply by living vigorously by the credo that when somebody turns on you, make them regret it.  When they help you, help them.  Nobody’s asking progressives to gut Obama, just not to permit being used as disposables until its time to come up with the cash, the volunteers and the legwork.)

If President Obama is unwilling to even countenance having progressives as his decision makers then it is an entirely reasonable supposition that he is unlikely is he to go to bat for genuinely progressive policies?  If progressives are the one group he feels utterly comfortable in visibly shutting out from the top table then why should we take feel-good beliefs that he will, in fact, be progressive after all, at face value?  It shouldn’t be.  Genuine, overt progressives were politically owed at least one high-profile and substantive recognition of their work, and their importance to the president-elect.  They quite conspicuously didn’t get it.  In politics such actions are messages with real, practical and immediate substantive effects.

The point I raised earlier remains, and given Tom’s phrasing permit me to state it more bluntly: Why, of ALL the significant contributors to his victory, only progressives are singled out for the fuck-you of being completely shut out of every key position?  NOBODY has answered that, and, frankly, you shouldn’t even be answering it.  Obama should be.

I want to return to one of seeker’s points, because I think there’s an essential point to be made:

Isn’t it a little odd to be saying that the appointment of centrists is really a clever plot to mainstream progressive ideals?

You want to know how I know Obama is trying to mainstream progressive ideals?  I know that because he’s been doing it for more than four years (and possibly longer, but I wasn’t paying attention before that).  Go back and re-read Obama’s 2004 speech: the whole thing is about framing liberal values as American values.  It’s something he does to one degree or another in every single speech he makes.  He’s been doing it lately when he talks about dealing with the financial crisis. 

So when you express skepticism that he might actually be trying to do the thing he has been trying to do for more than four years, forgive me if I wonder whether you’ve been paying attention at all.

Again, it begs the question of how a given policy can make its way through cabinet and gain and maintain public and congressional support if without any “public acknowledgement” that the progressive policies have merit.

You’re confusing the question of whether policies have merit with the question of whether their merit lies in their ‘progressiveness’.  These are two entirely different things.  Obviously, Obama thinks progressive policies like infrastructure spending etc. have merit; that’s why he has made them his top priorities.  What seems to be bugging you is that he isn’t saying they have merit because they’re labeled progressive. Fine; that shit may matter to you, but it doesn’t matter to me.

Mnemosyne : there is much merit to the points made by you and over at Obsidian Wings.  But a response found there from Tom Hilton’s co-blogger aimai puts a a damning counter-argument forward:

I’ve got to agree with anhtony damiani. I really hope Obama moves the overton window, but I’m not happy to see it done by a return to the demonization of everyone to the left of bush as “wide eyed leftist demagogues.” Maybe what will happen is that they will fix on an actual set of named people “on the left” who will be rejected and scorned who are truly to the far, far, left. They can have ward churchill, for example. But what about the rest of us? are we too to be consigned to outer darkness? Last I looked I was just a liberal/progressive. And last I looked my heroes on the left “were all proved fucking right” to quote Judy Miller. So what is really happening here? Is Obama saying that Saul Alinsky et al were just progressives and is the angry left just the cannibals down river that no one ever sees? That’s ok with me as long as we are all clear about what is happening here. I’ve got no objection to Obama running against Pol Pot or Stalin or Marx (even). But is the ACLU part of the now despised “angry left?” What about “People for the American Way?” What about the UAW? Because I’m not sure who is being told off or why. If its all these centrist, standard Dem groups and communities I’m not that happy. I really object to Obama sistah soljahing the very coalition of progressive interests that brought him to power. Sure, it pisses off the now powerless far right mouthpieces like the NRO etc… but to my mind its like spending time bashing the PUMAs. If “the left” actually exists and is angry it would be more becoming to invite them into the tent instead of insisting that they stay out of the tent with the rest of the unamerican hordes.

Also of note is Ben Alper’s lengthy and effective fisking of the “most liberal platform” nonsense.

Even if I accept the points made by Mnemosyne, Obsidian Wings, Tom Hilton and Ms Kate in their unvarnished entirety, the questions I posed above remain:  “Would we be saying that Obama really believes in Hispanic issues if he didn’t a single one to cabinet?  Or saying that Obama really cherishes gender equality if his cabinet was all male?”  Would anybody here accept for even a jebus-sucking minute that it’s okay to publicly diss women, or hispanics, or african americans, if that meant genuinely advancing their interests?  No.  Because there is a point where symbol is substance.  And, frankly, I think Obama can do worse that acknowledge and own the people who have been consistently correct for eight fucking years.  And it should be equally painfully obvious that if Obama takes the position that progressives are just DFHs who need not be listened to, who do you think is going to be actually ignored once the first need to do so arises?  Progressives, once symbolically disavowed can be practically discarded at the earliest convenience.

I hope that Tom Hilton is right.  I hope that Obsidian Wings is right.  But overt rejection of the progressive label might be Obama sawing off the tree branch on which he’s sitting.  He might be the most brilliant politician since FDR in this respect.  I hope so.  But if progressive ideals are made into the Policy Loves That Dare Not Speak Their Name, please don’t be surprised if and when it goes to shit.  The American left ran like rabbits from the word “liberal”, despite liberalism being perhaps the most singularly successful and popular part of the American political experiment.  FDR didn’t run from “liberal”, Truman didn’t, LBJ didn’t.  The fact that their successors wouldn’t even stand up for even the name of their ideals was a huge contributor to the fact that they were turned into spineless, gibbering, insensate and ineffective political eunuchs for over a generation.  Now you are comfortable with the same thing happening to “progressive”.  I think that you might be falling into what Wilde (in another context) called the triumph of hope over experience.

We won’t settle this argument today, or perhaps even years to come.  But the right isn’t afraid of being called the right, nor is the centre afraid of the centre.  The left will continue to be substantively marginalized as long it is totally gutless about owning even its identity.  If Obama doesn’t have to name or even acknowledge you then he can—and probably will—ignore you.

He’s getting his deputy national campaign director to write to progressives in Huffpo telling them to, basically, STFU, that it’s “not a time for the left wing of our Party to draw conclusions about the Cabinet and White House appointments that President-Elect Obama is making”.  Okay for the centre and the right to draw conclusions.

Or maybe he’s saying that the left wing shouldn’t be drawing conclusions because the picks are progressive ones even if they’re not the best-known progressives who put out the best press releases and have the best book contracts and are on Air America all the time. 

For his Secretary of Veterans’ Affairs, Obama picked the guy that Bush fired for pointing out that his plan for the Iraq War was completely unworkable.  How is that not acknowledging that the DFH’s were right?

One final point: the ideological labeling of Obama’s appointees is inherently misleading and simplistic to begin with.  Take Clinton, Gates, and Jones, for example—all labeled either ‘centrist’ or ‘conservative’ (or some combination thereof).  As the Times reported last week, though, the common thread in all three appointments—and thus, one can reasonably conclude, the primary reason Obama put them where they will be—is that all three have vociferously advocated for reallocating resources from military to more diplomatic efforts—a foreign policy realignment that is solidly ‘progressive’.  The nice neat label-based scheme breaks down in that case. 

A lesser (but not unimportant) point is that people who carried out centrist policies while employed by a centrist president aren’t necessarily inherently centrist.  The policy options of any given appointee are guided and limited by the overall policy preferences of the person appointing him or her; people evolve over time; circumstances change.  One’s past performance may suggest what one would do under a very different president in very different times, but not in the deterministic way that these brain-dead labels imply.

Yeah, Mnemosyne, nothing like being right when he won’t overtly admit it.  Permit me to rephrase this metaphorically.

Let’s say that you are with a company for eight years.  Let’s say that during those eight years you and the group within the company were right on every single thing of import.  Let’s say that a new executive team sweeps in, but: (a) never overtly says that you and your group were right, even though (b) impliedly admitting you were right by implementing many of the things that you had advocated for ages; (c) not only conspicuously and overtly never actually admits that you were right .. hell, you and your group aren’t even mentioned by name; (d) not one significant executive level promotion goes to your group, no matter how competent and ready; (e) some of the people who were disastrously wrong on key issues do get the promotions and new responsibilities; and (f) you are the one group singled out for criticism for stating your opinion.  Are you thinking, “hey, I’ve got a future here!” or are you polishing your CV knowing that even when you are right in all things you will never get anywhere and when the layoffs come you will be first to be escorted out with yoru shit in a box.

Again, for the umpteenth fucking time, why are progressives the one group singled out for the symbolic and highly visible snub of no cabinet or senior staff posts?  Why are progressives the one group singled out for a public “please shut up” from a senior Obama confidante?  If Obama had troubled himself to make one public acknowledgment through his appointments of the importance of progressive ideals, one measly appointment which gives routine “due” to a group that helped get him where he is, then we ain’t havin’ this conversation.  You all act like I think he should have run out and carved your names in the Washington Monument.  All I’m saying is that he couldn’t even be bothered with the simplest symbolic and practical acknowledgment of what progressives have done for the country and for him and the Democratic Party.  Progressives have been visibly snubbed.  They have been told that even when they’re right they dare not ask for acknowledgment or responsibility.  He’s saying that, for the public record, everybody’s important but you, everybody need be acknowledged but you, nobody on his side can be dissed, except you. 

Face it: the President-Elect has pissed on your leg and you’re cooing that as long as a flower grows under your feet then it’s as good as rain.  Learn from FDR, learn from Truman, learn from LBJ: if you let your friends walk all over you then you’re the one with the problem, not them.

Tom Hilton, you make a valid counterpoint to a point that I didn’t make.  I wasn’t arguing that Clinton’s picks weren’t good, or that he was wrong to choice who he did and from where and for the reasons he has advanced.  Frankly, I think most of his cabinet choices—the incredible boneless wonder at HHS excepted—were quite good.

I made one bottom-line point: that the overt refusal to appoint any visibly progressive member to cabinet or senior staff is a snub to progressives.  Period.  They are the one key part of his coalition which has been left on the doorstep, their ideas to be implemented by others.  And they are the one key component of the coalition to be publicly told to stop bitching.  Not one of you in responding to this thread has been able to get around that unavoidable fact.  It has all been “oh, his other picks were excellent!”  or “the progressives should be happy that their ideas will be advanced by others!” and so on and so on.  For the third time, would we even be having this discussion if he had snubbed hispanics, or african americans, or women?  Don’t make me laugh.  You’d all be enraged and the notion that their views can be adequately advanced by others at the table would be seen for the exclusionary and condescending nonsense that it is.

[Obama’s picks, not Clinton.]

why are progressives the one group singled out for the symbolic and highly visible snub of no cabinet or senior staff posts?

Because they’re a bunch of commies and Obama can’t afford the media lashback he would take if he suddenly starts making the right-wing predictions of the Ayers Administration come true.

Dan:
Friendly sarcasm cheerfully accepted.  Kinda helps me make my point, though.  As long as reasonable progressive ideas are put forward as “centrist” and never admitted to originate with the left then it permits the left to continue to be portrayed as just a bunch of Marx-loving Ayersites.

Again, for the umpteenth fucking time, why are progressives the one group singled out for the symbolic and highly visible snub of no cabinet or senior staff posts?

And yet the fact that you can’t seem to name the progressives on whose behalf you’re so worked up about doesn’t stop you for a minute.  Nor does the fact that Obama hasn’t finished picking his cabinet, the shortlist for which includes—guess what?—at least a few of the names you said you were pissed for not getting HHS, including Kathleen Sibelius.

Again, if Obama was backpedaling from the policies, I would be worried.  If he were not staffing the lower-level positions with more progressive and yet less experienced candidates—which he is—I would be worried.  I am not worried because he’s—shock and horror!—appointing people who have some managerial and federal government experience, even if that means they’re not Perfectly Progressive enough for you.  That’s because, if I’ve learned nothing else in the past 8 years, I’ve learned that what politicians say doesn’t mean shit.  It’s all about what they do.  Obama can say that he’s resurrected the corpse of Ronald Reagan and as long as Reagan’s corpse now says he agrees with Obama that union protections need to be stronger, I don’t care.

And, sorry, but your metaphor doesn’t work.  If my company were taken over by another company—which is what the turnover of government is about down here—I wouldn’t expect a damn thing from them, even if they implemented all of my pet policies without consulting me.  To extrapolate that out from “they adopt all of your policies” to “and then they FIRE YOU ALL!!!” is just playing yet another “what-if” game that’s about as meaningful as speculating about what might happen if a giant meteor hit the Earth tomorrow.

I provided a list, Mnemosyne .  All I did was concede that it wasn’t as long as I wanted it to be.  Does kinda fit your out-of-character conduct in this thread of straw manning and talking past points taht don’t suit you.

And who told you about the meteor?  (It’s Thursday, btw, not Tuesday.)

Given that there are more cabinet picks to be made then debates like this and snap-back from progressives becomes more important, not less.  It sends a message to the president-elect that he can’t disavow, walk over or berate the progressives like, oh, not-quite-but-near-as-dammit every single mainstream Democratic office holder of any note for the past 36 years.  Given that the left-progressives are the only ones to have been blessed with their own little demand from the top for silence it seems that a little snap-back is doubly necessary.  If he thinks that the left can be told to shut up—when he isn’t bestowing such `advice’ on anybody else—then he will continue to do so.

Two more posts from my corner:

TAPPED’s Tim Fernholz

The Atlantic’s Marc Ambinder

If people don’t understand the difference between Bill Clinton dissing “the Left” while implementing Republican policies and Obama spokespeople dissing “the Left” while implementing the most liberal policies since the New Deal, well, I can’t help you.

And if you’re going to dismiss Larry Summers, you have to dismiss his public works infrastructure projects as well.  But I’m sure that trashing the centerpiece of Obama’s economic recovery plan so we can have a Real Progressive wouldn’t have any bad effects at all.

t doesn’t mean we want a country run by MoveOn.org, it means we want a country where the concerns of all of us who were accused of making everything terrible by pointing out that things were kind of terrible are actually listened to and considered rather than dismissed.

And you’ll get it - you concerns will be listened to, considered, and then dismissed.

Frankly, I think most of his cabinet choices—the incredible boneless wonder at HHS excepted—were quite good.

Well then, what the fuck are you complaining about?  Yes, I understand that you want personal validation.  Personal validation doesn’t mean shit.  Picking the right people for the job is what matters, and you’ve now admitted that by and large Obama is doing exactly that. 

Your exception, by the way, is a pick that serious advocates of healthcare reform are all very excited about—because it shows Obama is serious about getting sweeping changes to healthcare enacted.  And there’s your problem right there: Obama picks Daschle because he thinks Daschle will get the job done; you don’t like the Daschle pick because you don’t like Daschle.  One approach is suitable to governing, and the other isn’t.

This is what I had to try to explain to others when I told them I voted green this year. Not that I’m unhappy seeing a qualified senator of my state in the chair of president-elect, I just had to argue with people that A)who I voted for is no one’s business; B) “the times” are always changing, always dire, always crucial; C) I feel it is my civic duty to vote for the candidate I believe is most qualified, regardless of the likelihood of that candidate’s election. Anyone can tell me I’m wrong, but no one has the right to force me to vote (or not) for this or that candidate, or to force me to express an opinion I know is untrue. It is my civic right and duty to “stick to my guns”, no matter what the times are, no matter what’s happening overseas or down the street, no matter who’s in office, and no matter how crazy it may sound to others. The difference between a wingnut and a progressive is that progressives don’t teabag ideas or force feed them on others and try to make them regurgitate it down other people’s throats.

Wow, huge buckets of love to Seeker, for laying this issue out so clearly. It’s bothered me that Obama, who has generally been more center than left (there’s always been hedging around abortion and gay marriage and there always will be and we can’t just assume that he’s just SAYING it for the masses), despite the Right’s meme of “most liberal politician EVAH” is starting to shun the left so noticeably.

No, I’m not going to call for Obama’s head. I voted for the man, I will support the man. But I’m not going to become the leftist version of a Loyal Bushie and just chant that Obama is the best president EVAH, no matter what he does.

And if you’re going to dismiss Larry Summers, you have to dismiss his public works infrastructure projects as well.

Well, then I for one will happily dismiss his fucking public works infrastructure projects. I simply refuse to accept the idea that there isn’t ONE PERSON ON GOD’S GREEN EARTH (okay, America) that isn’t (a) equally qualified as Larry Summers and (b) not a misogynistic asshole.

(Seriously, is that what we’ve come to? Obama picked him, so it must be right?)

And, again, I’ve yet to see Obama pick an openly racist asshole to be Secretary of Anything, so I have to feel - just slightly - that maybe, just maybe, Obama might be more in tune to racist dog whistles than sexist ones. I don’t think it’s unpatriotic for us to remind him that this is 2008 thankyouverymuch and such shit is Not. Acceptable.

TomHilton, with regards to Biden: fail.

Biden was saying that he comes from a state that understands racial issues because they’ve been dealing with them since before the Civil War, and that he’s not from some insulated northern state that has a small African American population.

Summers reinforced the meme that women just intrinsically can’t “get” science and maths because their brains are so inferior. Something many, MANY people believe to this day. Haven’t you heard? There’s a “study” that women can’t rotate shit in their heads. That’s why we can’t call on them in math and science class. That’s why they don’t feel welcome in math and science colleges. That’s why I had 100% male teachers in my engineering degree program and that’s why 95% of them felt like I should either be a madonna or a whore, but definitely NOT an engineer. That’s why I work in a room that is composed of 5% females. That’s why Summers is NOT an acceptable choice for Secretary of anything.

Please point out to me where “my state was a slave state” says ANYTHING about the nature of black people’s brains or intrinsic abilties. Oh, wait. You can’t.

I simply refuse to accept the idea that there isn’t ONE PERSON ON GOD’S GREEN EARTH (okay, America) that isn’t (a) equally qualified as Larry Summers and (b) not a misogynistic asshole.

Name one or two who would want the job.  Concentrate on showing the “equally qualified” bit.  And while you’re at it, you might want to work on the demonstration of Summers as TheWorstMisogynistEveh working from what he has said rather than people’s opinions on what he said. Feel free to show that your alternative candidates (who would also probably have been born in the mid 50s) have never said anything controversial, faulty, or even plain stupid that couldn’t be seized upon as a demonstration of bias.

“The percentage of tenured job offers made to women by the university’s Faculty of Arts and Sciences has dropped dramatically since Summers took office…”

Uhhh, yeah PIATOR.

“The percentage of tenured job offers made to women by the university’s Faculty of Arts and Sciences has dropped dramatically since Summers took office…”

Indeed, and worrying.  But what are the numbers, is this a reflection of the pool of candidates, and to what extent is this Summers? The “office” referred to is the President of Harvard, and we’re talking about offers made by a single faculty here.

For what it’s worth, the Wikipedia entry seems to indicate it’s not as clear cut as it is being made out to be.

For the record, I’m not defending him - the guy is one of the reasons why the world economy is fucked up.  I’m stating that I do not see this particular charge as sufficiently well justified, nor do I see as particularly relevant to the position.