Left apoplectic at early Obama appointments

The far left constituency that elected Barack Obama as president-elect, is coming unwired on the internet and blogs, at his early appointments to the White House staff and cabinet.

It is turning out to be a business-as-usual, garden variety, middle-of-the-road Democratic administration. He is looking to govern from the center, as Bill Clinton tried to do, rather than larding up the administration with zealots and Georgia good old boys, as Jimmy Carter did. (Remember OMB head Bert Lance? Remember Carol Tucker Foreman, head of the radical Consumer Federation of America, as Ag Secretary? Obama is considering farmer-friendly former Iowa Gov. Tom Vilsack. A huge difference.)

Obama's first appointment, Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel, is no ideologue. He is a hard-edged, sharp-elbowed Washington insider. A scion of the Clinton administration, he brokered the conservative Welfare Reform bill that got Clinton re-elected, and brought in Republican Dick Morris to the White House, to shine up Clinton's strategy after the congressional election debacle of 1994, when Newt Gingrich and the Contract with America, swept control of both houses of Congress.

Obama's nomination of Eric Holder as Attorney General has the left beside themselves. He worked out the presidential pardon of international criminal wheeler-dealer Marc Rich. He is hardline on terrorism and internal security. (Despite what the Obama sycophants in the liberal press are reporting, Holder IS NOT the first black Attorney General. Edward Levi in the Gerald Ford administration was.)

Hillary Clinton as secretary of state is more of a hard liner on Iraq and terrorism. If he keeps Bush's Defense Secretary, Bob Gates, as he is hinting at this writing, it is shaping up as a reasonably hardline team.

All these people are well left of my preferences, but are not near as scary as who Obama might have appointed. If anything, it looks nearly identical to what we might have expected Hillary to set up, if she had been elected. All his transition team and the appointments so far, are old Clinton hands.

It sets up his administration as governing from the middle, and throwing very little red meat to his most ardent adherents. What a pleasant surprise!