Bush and Obama cabinet member, Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates, is trying to keep a significant number of the Bush administration political appointees to remain on the jobs at the Pentagon until the incoming Obama administration finds replacements. This unusual move is intended to prevent a leadership vacuum at among the military’s civilian leadership as the U.S. wages war on two major fronts; Iraq and Afghanistan.
Gates confirmed that the Obama Transition Team is on board with his attempts to prevent a vacuum at the Pentagon as with the change in adminstrations, as is usually the case at all federal agencies and departments. Gates intend to keep, at least temporarily, most of the service secretaries and undersecretaries, whose replacements will need Senate confirmation. Senate confirmation is a process which often takes months.
Senior officials asked to stay include John Young, undersecretary of defense for acquisition, technology and logistics, and James R. Clapper, undersecretary of defense for intelligence.
While this move is obviously done for practical reasons, (the fact the U.S. is deeply in war, and this will not change quickly), some anti-war activists and bloggers are voicing displeasure at the apparent turnabout by Obama in keeping so-called neoconservatives and Hawks in positions of authority in the civilian leadership at the Pentagon. Obama may be seeking to avoid public battles with the military establishment early on, as is belived at http://www.openleft.com/, but most likely, he is doing whatever he can to prevent costly national security mistakes or omissions if dozens of Pentagon positions go unfilled for the first few months of 2009. This appears to be a practical move on the part of President-Elect Obama.
With the blogosphere heating up with criticism of Barack Obama’s expensive Hawaii vacation rental digs (http://www.thesmokinggun.com/archive/years/2008/1222081obama1.html), and negative comments on the money being spent on his trip, especially the government funds paid for Secret Service bodyguards, and the ongoing Blagojevich scandal, what is the likelihood that the new President-Elect will use part of his vacation time to visit the troops in the war zones?
Such a bold (though hardly unprecedented) move would certainly shake things up. Using Hawaii as his launching pad, Obama could jet over to Afghanistan and Iraq to share Christmas and Hanukkah meals with our men and women over there. How would the President-Elect benefit from such a trip? One, he would cancel any nascent criticism of his choice of vacation locations and the high cost of this trip in bad economic times, if he could show it as being “job-related” . Second, it would put all other political news on the back burner, particularly the Blagojevich scandal back in his home town of Chicago. It would also serve to void the stupid argument between Dick Cheney and Joe Biden that is currently filling the political talk shows. More importantly, such a visit would help shore up Obama’s thin foreign policy resume and show that he puts the needs of American troops above his own needs, such as improving his golf game. And, after much talk and publicity over the domestic economic crisis, Obama needs to show leadership on the war front.
The last time the U.S. had a presidential election in which neither the sitting president nor vice-president ran was in 1952. Then, the nation was in the midst of a fairly unpopular war which is often now referred to as “The Forgotten War.” President-Elect Dwight Eisenhower visited the troops in Korea after winning the election. It was the right thing for Eisenhower to do, and it will be the right thing for Obama to do as well.
Obama Transition team announces White House Task Force on Working Families
President-elect Obama taps Vice President-elect Biden to Chair
Washington, DC – Today, the Obama Transition team announced the President-elect’s intention to form a ‘White House Task Force on Working Families,’ to be chaired by Vice President-elect Joe Biden, effective January 20, 2009. The Task Force will be a major initiative targeted at raising the living standards of middle-class, working families in America. The task force will be comprised of top-level administration policy makers, and in addition to regular meetings, it will conduct outreach sessions with representatives of labor, business, and the advocacy communities.
“My administration will be absolutely committed to the future of America’s middle-class and working families. They will be front and center every day in our work in the White House. And this Task Force will be one vehicle we will use to ensure that we never forget that commitment. I think it can make a great contribution to our work, and I’m grateful that the Vice President-elect has agreed to chair it,” said President-elect Obama.
The Vice President-elect said: “Our charge is to look at existing and future policies across the board and use a yard stick to measure how they are impacting the working and middle-class families: Is the number of these families growing? Are they prospering? President-elect Obama and I know the economic health of working families has eroded, and we intend to turn that around.”
The Vice President-elect and members of the task force will work with a wide array of federal agencies that have responsibility for key issues facing middle class and working families, and expedite administrative reforms, propose Executive orders, and develop legislative and policy proposals that can be of special importance to working families.
The President-elect has set the following goals for the task force:
Expanding education and lifelong training opportunities
Improving work and family balance
Restoring labor standards, including workplace safety
Helping to protect middle-class and working-family incomes
Protecting retirement security
Members of the White House Task Force on Working Families will include the Secretaries of Labor, Health and Human Services, Education, and Commerce, as well as the Directors of the National Economic Council, the Office of Management and Budget, the Domestic Policy Council, and the Chair of the Council of Economic Advisors.
The Task Force will operate in a transparent fashion, with any submissions to it from outside groups posted online, and open, two-way dialogue directly with the American people. The Task Force will issue annual reports on its findings and recommendations, which will be made available to the public and will be posted on the internet.
