I'll be honest. I'm frustrated. Why? Well Obama did the rounds with all of the reporters uttering words George W. Bush never did: I screwed up. USA Today's front page today was a sad-looking picture of Obama and a headline telling how some of his shine is wearing off with his Tom Daschle boo-boo.
Meanwhile, there's a vetting job that Obama IS doing very well. He might not be vetting out the people who have problems paying their taxes, but he sure is weeding out anyone who might be an actual change agent and keeping them from the top levels of his administration.
http://www.dailykos.com/...
Case in point: A recent NYT article about Chuck Hassebrook.
I rarely throw this plea in but please do me a favor and rec this if you find it significant. I'll explain why I find it so important below the flip.
Obama got his launch with grassroots support. It was the mainstream of this country who gave him his ultimate victory on Nov 4, but it was US - the grassroots - who got him started. We're the ones who got excited about him before anyone thought he had a chance, and who made his fundraising a success of epic proportions. Where's OUR seat at the table now?
84,000 of us have signed our names to a request to Obama to appoint a reformer to the USDA. Sure, at first we were asking for one of our guys to get the Secretary job. That didn't happen. Nor did we get Grijalva for Interior or RFK, Jr for EPA. (Will we now get Dr. Dean for HHS?) But now there's another plum yet to be decided: USDA Deputy Secretary. And Nicholas Kristof - a genuine Oregon farm boy, as he calls himself - wants Chuck Hassebrook for the job.
Who is Chuck? Well, I haven't met him myself. I don't know too much directly. But I DO trust the judgment of the 90 original petition signers - many of whom I HAVE met. That includes names like Marion Nestle, Wendell Berry, and Michael Pollan. If they like Chuck, then I like Chuck.
Chuck Hassebrook leads up the Center for Rural Affairs, an organization whose work I respect. From their site, their mission is:
The Center for Rural Affairs works to establish strong rural communities, social and economic justice, environmental stewardship, and genuine opportunity for all while engaging people in decisions that affect the quality of their lives and the future of their communities.
Here's what I can gather from the newspaper coverage out there. Chuck Hassebrook is not some crazy lefty. He's actually pretty much aligned with Obama in his views. And I think that's fair. Obama campaigned on a promise of change and a platform of specific policies. By putting Chuck Hassebrook in the job, we'd be pretty certain to see the exact changes we were promised and that we voted for on Election Day.
But right now, if Kristof is correct, Chuck's chances are looking, well... slim. Sen. Kent Conrad - who sits on the Senate Ag Committee - has come out against him, and it looks like he'll get his way. Why is he against Chuck Hassebrook? Because Hassebrook agrees with Obama and with over half the Senate about commodity subsidy reforms. If my brother were still alive, I think he would call that "weak sauce."
So here's my thoughts: I was listening to probably Thom Hartmann this week and he spoke about how powerful presidents of the past (namely FDR) went AROUND Congress - directly to the American people - when they wanted to get something done that Congress wouldn't go for.
If enough people are out here calling for the change we were promised - calling our Senators, emailing our Senators, emailing Obama and Vilsack, kicking up a stink on the blog - then what choice will they have? Sacrifice their own popularity with the American people and immediately lose the image that they have any intention on following through with campaign promises?
When it comes down to it, I'm all for Cabinet members paying their taxes just like the rest of us, but I'm much less upset about that than about the impression I'm getting that Obama is willing to be pushed around by conservative Democrats, to so easily give up on bringing us change. We voted for change. 84,000+ of us signed a petition asking specifically for Chuck Hassebrook at the USDA. Why are we vetting out anyone who will bring us actual change... and then doing rounds of interviews apologizing about far more trivial problems instead? (And why is the media falling for it?)