President-elect Obama's first major appointment is drawing fire:
Barack Obama's designated chief of staff -- responding to Republicans' concerns that his tough, partisan approach might run at odds with Barack Obama's administration -- said it's up to the new president to set a bipartisan "tone."
Illinois Rep. Rahm Emanuel, appearing Sunday on ABC News' This Week, dismissed such charges by saying Obama will maintain his pledge to govern in a bipartisan manner.
Seems like kneejerk outrage. The chief of staff is the president's gatekeeper, not his outreach director. His job is to manage the president's time by managing his office. Nixon's chief once described the job as being "the president's son of a bitch." I presume the duties haven't changed since then.
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Obama ran on change.The choice of Rahm Emanuel is more of the same old B/S. I hear he once mailed a dead fish to a pollster he didnt agree with. If he ever did something like that to me I would hunt him down and beat his sorry ass. He is to much of a coward to hand the fish over face to face.
In a pointed short piece at Dartblog, Joe Malchow attacks the possible appointment of political hack Jamie Gorelic as Attorney General. His concluding sentence applies to Rohm Emanuel as well:
"Barack Obama is not so much about change as he is about putting old-hand left-wingers back in charge of everything, including the Judiciary".
http://herdgadfly.blogspot.com/2008/11/this-is-change-i-was-promised.html