Obama Plans To Pick Republicans For Cabinet

Times Online:

AS Barack Obama enters the final stages of the fight for the Democratic presidential nomination, he is preparing to detach the core voters of John McCain, the likely Republican nominee, with the same ruthless determination with which he has peeled off Hillary Clinton's supporters.

The scene is set for a tussle between the two candidates for the support of some of the sharpest and most independent minds in politics. Obama is hoping to appoint cross-party figures to his cabinet such as Chuck Hagel, the Republican senator for Nebraska and an opponent of the Iraq war, and Richard Lugar, leader of the Republicans on the Senate foreign relations committee.

Read the whole story: Times Online

Comments

[ElectionFanatic]

Obama picking Republicans for his cabinet reflects the fact that he is a part of Generation Jones--the generation between the Boomers and GenXers--which is known for being compromisi­ng/mediati­ng/uniting­. Generational middle children, centered between the idealism of the Boomers and the cynicism of the Xers, GenJonesers have demonstrated the ability to bring generation­s/politica­l foes/ etc. together.

[tbone99]

yeah that, and he's a Leo with a hedge fund rising

[LaFeminazi]

Herr Doktor Von Rumsfeldt.

Field Marshall for Pest Control.

"Hey, thats what termites do when given their freedom."

[NotWaldo]

Rumsfeld will never come out of retirement. He recently said that he is very happy promoting unnecessary conflicts inside his own family.

[Cybesq]

The article points out that Kennedy appointed Robert McNamara, a Republican, as Secretary of Defense. Remember how well that worked out?

I am all for Obama, but he needs to be kept in check.

[Sisyphuss]

You can be Thwarter in Chief. :)

[rivrgrrl]

Wow.

Another brilliant strategic move for Obama.
This guy just keeps getting better and better.

[NotWaldo]

He is UNSTOPPABLE.

[tbone99]

This guy just keeps getting better and better....­........Fo­r the Republicans!

Both of these guys are hard core conservatives.

[BWonka]

He's thinking ahead - not stuck in the past like McCrazy or Hillary.

[rivrgrrl]

Yup.

Just about everything about him says 'fresh beginnings' and the start of a new era. No more of bush's S.N.A.F.U.­s and Clinton's business as usual.

[LaFeminazi]

How about Dick Cheney

Secretary of Forced Labour .

;)

[forpeace]

*

LaFeminazi

How about Dick Cheney

=============

He can be in charge of visitor Logs to the WH!

*

[LaFeminazi]

Just thinking up jobs for which they are eminently qualified.

Bush

The holder of the Clown Suit.

Nope, too English, that's Tony's new job.

[shockmagog]

Cheney:

Secretary of Folding Space.

[psfurlong356]

how about Cheney Directer of ATF... wait he can't shoot straight ;)

[NotWaldo]

Dick Cheney, Secretary of ... Secrecy, lies and videotapes.

[forpeace]

*

.......... do we have a position as Minister of OIL?!

*

[forpeace]

*

Well ..........­. we can not just thought them out in the ocean, some of them must be useful, for something.

May be give the Moderate Republicans a position, but make sure to monitor them at all the time, they are not that trustworthy!

As for the Right Wing Extremist Republicans ........ a One Way Ticket to Iraq would be ideal!

*

[rwferr]

This is a big problem. We need a fighter. Someone who is going to fight the republicans, not try to work with them. We need someone who will work tirelessly to ram everything right down their republican throats and make them the minority party that they should be with offices in the Capitol basement. Not somebody who is going to give them respect and try to "work" with them. After what we have been throug a concilator is not what is needed at all. We can deliver a permenant democratic majority but Obama helping the repubs is not gonna be able to do that.

[hiriumi]

Why is fighting always good? That's what is wrong with Americans. Fighting is not always the solution.

[hope]

Oh, yeah? Sez who?
Put 'em up!

:)

[tbone99]

Wish the Repugs practiced that

.I mean if iraq is any example...

[starboymikey]

Why is fighting always good? That's what is wrong with Americans. Fighting is not always the solution.
__________­__________­__________­__________­__________­__________­____

This is why all this crap about Hillary being "a fighter" leaves me cold. She has shown in the past that her confrontational attitude just encourages her enemies to fight even harder.

This country needs a steady hand right now, not more confrontation. That's why Obama would be a wiser choice. Hell, even McCain might be a wiser choice that Hillary Clinton. I actually think he may have more ability to compromise with Dems than she does with Republicans.

[BeyondGoodAndEvil]

Fighting doesn't work. Fighting is how Clinton failed with health care the first time, and how George Bush got us into a mess in Iraq, and how Bill lost his democratic majority, and capitulated to the right championing deregulation. Fighting is pointless. You need co-operation, negotiation and discussion to get any really worthwhile legislation passed.

[shockmagog]

He's just saying that to be nice. The Republicans are continuing to implode on their own. If there are any left, he may ask them to help clean up the mess they helped create.

[tbone99]

Unfortunately they don't think of it as a mess - its profit!

[Mattie]

are you saying Obama doesn't mean what he says. Is that what he whole NAFTA thing was about to, he was just being nice.

[Dragon5616]

Unless you can break a filibuster in the Senate, "ram[ming] everything right down their republican throats" isn't going to work.

[BlackWidowPilot]

Keep your friends close, keep your enemies closer.

Leland R. Erickson

Citizen

[Jtt]

War about to break out in South America. An EXTREMELY grave escalation to violence in Israel and the Occupied territories - and we are discussing feverishly a hypothetical cabinet pick of a hypothetical president. Priceless.

[shockmagog]

It's a "slow news day." What can I say?

[Jtt]

But its not. Thats what is so disturbing. Its totally been farmed out to us as a slow day.

[Dragon5616]

Guess you should move along then.

[Jtt]

What? which post of yours makes any difference what so ever? How many people see your side of the issue now. Or have you just been arguing to argue.

I almost support hillary after listening to the Obama garbage here.

[Sisyphuss]

Everyone needs a break from the violence.

[Jtt]

My point being those other Bogs have been closed.

[Mattie]

hmmm, has anyone told Obama supporters that, on a thread the other night about super delegates, they were threatening to burn our cities if he wasn't the nominee. Does that count as violence.

[nazirmo]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6mOa3sXjqE4

[MichaelO]

Last attempt for discussion:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/02/29/AR2008022902784.html?nav=hcmodule

[BeyondGoodAndEvil]

And this Washington Post story completely negates that story as total bullshit.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/01/03/AR2008010303303.html

[accountability]

Well, no.

This Opinion piece disagrees with the other Opinion piece,
Ignatius has an opinion. actually he just has a wish.

I didn't see any trashing of Obama, or anything that really could be proven wrong since he was just asking questions and wondering.

Charles Peters who I am assuming is a Barack supporter puts forth the supposition about the press not looking at Obama's record (or Edwards and Clinton's for that matter) I agree with him. None of the records have been looked at properly.
We have become such a pop culture that the media is covering this election like its the political version of Entertainment tonight.
Its all controversy. Distorting, over blowing, creating controversy trying to find ways to draw blood, to make the candidates draw blood.

Pretty sad really..

[MNmommy]

Heresy.

[Dragon5616]

I disagree with Mr. Ignatius' opinion.

[Sisyphuss]

Obama gets ripped from the right for being too liberal and ripped from the left for not being liberal enough. I'd say that's a good sign.

[accountability]

which one is he?

[accountability]

http://tinyurl.com/3bkzro

When asked about his legislative record, Obama rattles off several bills he sponsored as an Illinois lawmaker.

He expanded children's health insurance; made the state Earned Income Tax Credit refundable for low-income families; required public bodies to tape closed-door meetings to make government more transparent; and required police to videotape interrogations of homicide suspects.

And the list goes on.

It's a lengthy record filled with core liberal issues. But what's interesting, and almost never discussed, is that he built his entire legislative record in Illinois in a single year.

Republicans controlled the Illinois General Assembly for six years of Obama's seven-year tenure. Each session, Obama backed legislation that went nowhere; bill after bill died in committee. During those six years, Obama, too, would have had difficulty naming any legislative ­achievements.

Then, in 2002, dissatisfaction with President Bush and Republicans on the national and local levels led to a Democratic sweep of nearly every lever of Illinois state government. For the first time in 26 years, Illinois Democrats controlled the governor's office as well as both legislative chambers.

The white, race-baiting, hard-right Republican Illinois Senate Majority Leader James "Pate" Philip was replaced by Emil Jones Jr., a gravel-voiced, dark-skinned African-American known for chain-smoking cigarettes on the Senate floor.

Jones had served in the Illinois Legislature for three decades. He represented a district on the Chicago South Side not far from Obama's. He became Obama's ­kingmaker.

Several months before Obama announced his U.S. Senate bid, Jones called his old friend Cliff Kelley, a former Chicago alderman who now hosts the city's most popular black call-in radio ­program.

I called Kelley last week and he recollected the private conversation as follows:

"He said, 'Cliff, I'm gonna make me a U.S. Senator.'"

"Oh, you are? Who might that be?"

"Barack Obama."

Jones appointed Obama sponsor of virtually every high-profile piece of legislation, angering many rank-and-file state legislators who had more seniority than Obama and had spent years championing the bills.

"I took all the beatings and insults and endured all the racist comments over the years from nasty Republican committee chairmen," State Senator Rickey Hendon, the original sponsor of landmark racial profiling and videotaped confession legislation yanked away by Jones and given to Obama, complained to me at the time. "Barack didn't have to endure any of it, yet, in the end, he got all the credit.

"I don't consider it bill jacking," Hendon told me. "But no one wants to carry the ball 99 yards all the way to the one-yard line, and then give it to the halfback who gets all the credit and the stats in the record book."

During his seventh and final year in the state Senate, Obama's stats soared. He sponsored a whopping 26 bills passed into law — including many he now cites in his presidential campaign when attacked as inexperienced.

It was a stunning achievement that started him on the path of national politics — and he couldn't have done it without Jones.

Before Obama ran for U.S. Senate in 2004, he was virtually unknown even in his own state. Polls showed fewer than 20 percent of Illinois voters had ever heard of Barack Obama.

Jones further helped raise Obama's profile by having him craft legislation addressing the day-to-day tragedies that dominated local news ­headlines.

For instance. Obama sponsored a bill banning the use of the diet supplement ephedra, which killed a Northwestern University football player, and another one preventing the use of pepper spray or pyrotechnics in nightclubs in the wake of the deaths of 21 people during a stampede at a Chicago nightclub. Both stories had received national attention and extensive local coverage.

I spoke to Jones earlier this week and he confirmed his conversation with Kelley, adding that he gave Obama the legislation because he believed in Obama's ability to negotiate with Democrats and Republicans on divisive issues.


So how has Obama repaid Jones?

Last June, to prove his commitment to government transparency, Obama released a comprehensive list of his earmark requests for fiscal year 2008. It comprised more than $300 million in pet projects for Illinois, including tens of millions for Jones's Senate district.

Shortly after Jones became Senate president, I remember asking his view on pork-barrel spending.

I'll never forget what he said:

"Some call it pork; I call it steak."

[detwob]

Does this mean Obama's mentor Joe Lieberman will be a Republican in the Cabinet??

Ah... the city on the hill, Reagan is back, compromise is in the air. And working people get the shaft again.

[Sisyphuss]

Lieberman? Not sure what he's good for. Ambassador to Antarctica, maybe.

[mrdontplay]

The more I hear from this guy the more I know he is the best person for the job of bringing America BACK!

Y E S

W E

C A N !

[NotWaldo]

What other choice do you have ?

[wendytheretard]

mine! si se puede

[LaFeminazi]

I know I know

Clarence Thomas for AG.

He can stay on SCOTUS just to make sure things get done.

Sorry got carried away.

;)

get that damned straitjacket outta my face !

[MNmommy]

It must be the late hour.

[LaFeminazi]

Very late, ML is back in Paris, fingers crossed for tomorrow.

[hope]

Just for that, you shall be forced to read Thomas' biography.

Twice.

[LaFeminazi]

Nnonononononononono

Please Hope, I promise to hope Hope.

[BWonka]

Every copy includes a pubic hair and a coupon for a can of Coke.

[NotWaldo]

I think Robert Bork is available.

[Dragon5616]

Saw the other day where Thomas hadn't asked a question during oral argument in like two years. Probably busy with his copy of Hustler under his robes.

[dumbosrus]

I wonder how many sitting dem senators Obama would consider for his cabinet? Any at all? If ANY dem voting for the war in Iraq is immediate grounds for disqualification, who would he be left with?

Anyway, here's a brilliant impersonation of Monica Lewinsky by none other than Billary;

http://www.drudgereport.com/

Helluva job Billary, helluva job!!!

[BWonka]

Drudge??? WOW - you ARE dumb!

[dumbosrus]

For someone who gets their news from the HP (all the time), you really shouldn't talk.

PS: A lot of the link here on the HP are the same one's used by Scott Drudge.

But of course you knew that, right???

[tbone99]

Ah, the smell of HOPE!

Hagel's Support of President Bush's Priorities in the Senate
2005 89%
2004 94%
2003 98%
2002 98%
2001 96%

Couldn't do much better than appointing Bush himself.

[Dragon5616]

Breaking News! Hagel appointed to Obama's cabinet!

Oh, sorry, I got carried away.

[YellerDawg]

Don't worry. The sky will open. Heavenly choirs will sing, and Chuck Hagel will renounce his right-wing homophobic reactionary ways. It will be beautiful. You'll see.