The complaints we have with the Obama Cabinet
This is sure to ruffle a few conservative feathers, but we really don't have much to complain about with regard to the Obama presidency, and his choice of Cabinet officials. We're on the same page with Larry Kudlow regarding Obama's economic team, including Tim Geithner. If he does pick Bill Richardson for Secretary of Commerce, at least the post will be filled by someone competent. (We actually worried a little when Jennifer Granholm's name was getting bandied about for a Cabinet post, and this one came up. She's been a disaster for the state of Michigan.) But we do have a couple of complaints about who he wants working with him.
The first is Janet Napolitano. Yeah, we get the best end of the deal if she accepts (and it looks like she will) the post offered. How's that? She leaves as governor of Arizona, and we get Jan Brewer in her place, and Secretary of State Brewer is a rising star in the GOP. She'll also keep the highly partisan Terry Goddard out of the governor's mansion in 2010. Goddard was a disaster for the city of Phoenix when he was mayor, and we really don't want to see him running the state into the ground the way he did with the city of Phoenix. That said, we don't think Governor Napolitano is qualified to be the Secretary of Homeland Security. A lot of people will point to her stance on border issues, and while yes she did sign some bills that cracked down on illegal immigration, those bills were authored by the GOP in the state legislature. And yes, she did order the National Guard to the border to help with enforcement, but they were told not to do anything other than provide surveillance for the border patrol. Granted, thanks to posse comitatus there is little else they could do.But we think that Obama should rescind this offer to her and find another post for her to occupy. If he wants to make the nation breathe a little easier, and show us he's not just paying us lip service with retaining Robert Gates, then he should tap someone else for DHS.
The second one is Eric Holder. This guy is a mistake as the Attorney General. I'll let Andy McCarthy explain why we're as opposed to Eric Holder as he is:
In my mind, it is Holder who owes an apology — he and his cheerleaders like Lanny Davis, who has never seen a sow’s ear that couldn’t be warped into a silk purse (and isn’t it a thrill to see that “Change” has already put Lanny back on the side of power?); like the leading Democrats who’ve addled us for years with their “grave” concerns about the Justice Department’s lost integrity (it turns out they were kidding); and like President-Elect Obama, who promised voters counterterrorism seriousness but has now given us an AG nominee who promoted a corrupt pardon process that sprung mass-murderers from prison … that is, when he wasn’t otherwise busy securing a pass for a notorious fugitive fraudster and orchestrating a SWAT team’s gunpoint-seizure of a six-year-old child for transport to a communist tyranny.
Let’s be blunt here: The Marc Rich pardon was one of the most disgraceful chapters in the history of the Justice Department. Not the modern history, the entire history. Rich was accused of mega-crimes: millions in fraud, tax-evasion, and trading with the America’s enemies. In 2000, he was a fugitive. He had been one for nearly two decades, during which the government had expended immense resources in a futile attempt to apprehend him.
Mind you, flitting from country to country to avoid prosecution, as Rich was doing, is itself a felony. When Eric Holder aided and abetted Rich’s pardon effort, he was not only grossly violating the Justice Department policy it was his job to uphold; he was dealing with the agents of someone who was actively committing a serious federal crime. That’s why, when prosecutors deal with a fugitive’s representatives, the appropriate question is: “When is he going to turn himself in?” It’s not, as Holder essentially asked, “What can I do to help?”
Holder, then Clinton administration deputy attorney general, steered the fugitive toward a friendly Clinton insider: former White House Counsel Jack Quinn. That enabled the most-wanted fugitive to lobby the President directly — and in violation of an executive order barring lobbying by recently departed White House staffers — without nettlesome interference from the Justice Department’s long-established, procedurally rigorous pardon process. In order to protect the public, that process called for input from the case prosecutors and investigators. As Holder well knew, following it would have demonstrated beyond cavil that pardoning Rich would be an outrage, in violation of every DOJ guideline.
Moreover, Holder extended his helping hand with the crassest of motives: the careerist was hoping the influential Quinn would look favorably on Holder’s quest to become attorney general in a Gore administration. That is, Holder was actively soliciting help from Quinn (Vice President Gore’s former counsel and friend) at the very time he was providing invaluable help to Quinn’s fugitive client — first in unsuccessfully pushing Rich’s preposterous effort to settle the case without jail time with prosecutors in New York, then in overcoming the uniform objections of White House staffers to a Rich pardon.
And the cherry on top: The scenario in which Holder’s sell-out of Justice Department principle took place was scummy in every particular; multi-millionaire Rich’s ex-wife and staunchest supporter, Denise Rich, was making mega-bucks donations to Clinton causes (according to Time, $400,000 to the Clinton Library Fund, $10,000 to the Clinton Legal Defense Fund, and over $1 million to Democrat campaigns during the Clinton era — including $70,000 for the 2000 Senate campaign of Hillary Clinton, now Obama’s pick for secretary of State).
As they say, read the whole thing. It's a must-read piece because beyond this he goes into the connections Holder had to the pardoning of the FALN terrorists that Clinton pulled off at the last minute. This guy is up to his eyeballs in shady dealings int he background, and he seems perfectly willing to cut deals that could leave us vulnerable, or deals that will help him and let lawbreakers skate.
Holder is one we absolutely oppose, and we urge Republican senators to oppose him as well. Obama can find someone else -- someone better -- to be his AG. After all, his economic team looks good. He looks like he will be solid on defense issues, and even foreign policy given who his Secretary of State will be. (Enough groaning, guys. She can't do any worse than Madeline Half-bright did, and chances are, she'll do a better job than that old bag did. Betcha she won't get duped the way Madeline did by the NorKs.) But the lead guy at Justice shouldn't have the baggage that Holder has. That baggage speaks volumes of how he'd run things out of Justice, and that should have more than a couple people worried.
Publius II
The first is Janet Napolitano. Yeah, we get the best end of the deal if she accepts (and it looks like she will) the post offered. How's that? She leaves as governor of Arizona, and we get Jan Brewer in her place, and Secretary of State Brewer is a rising star in the GOP. She'll also keep the highly partisan Terry Goddard out of the governor's mansion in 2010. Goddard was a disaster for the city of Phoenix when he was mayor, and we really don't want to see him running the state into the ground the way he did with the city of Phoenix. That said, we don't think Governor Napolitano is qualified to be the Secretary of Homeland Security. A lot of people will point to her stance on border issues, and while yes she did sign some bills that cracked down on illegal immigration, those bills were authored by the GOP in the state legislature. And yes, she did order the National Guard to the border to help with enforcement, but they were told not to do anything other than provide surveillance for the border patrol. Granted, thanks to posse comitatus there is little else they could do.But we think that Obama should rescind this offer to her and find another post for her to occupy. If he wants to make the nation breathe a little easier, and show us he's not just paying us lip service with retaining Robert Gates, then he should tap someone else for DHS.
The second one is Eric Holder. This guy is a mistake as the Attorney General. I'll let Andy McCarthy explain why we're as opposed to Eric Holder as he is:
In my mind, it is Holder who owes an apology — he and his cheerleaders like Lanny Davis, who has never seen a sow’s ear that couldn’t be warped into a silk purse (and isn’t it a thrill to see that “Change” has already put Lanny back on the side of power?); like the leading Democrats who’ve addled us for years with their “grave” concerns about the Justice Department’s lost integrity (it turns out they were kidding); and like President-Elect Obama, who promised voters counterterrorism seriousness but has now given us an AG nominee who promoted a corrupt pardon process that sprung mass-murderers from prison … that is, when he wasn’t otherwise busy securing a pass for a notorious fugitive fraudster and orchestrating a SWAT team’s gunpoint-seizure of a six-year-old child for transport to a communist tyranny.
Let’s be blunt here: The Marc Rich pardon was one of the most disgraceful chapters in the history of the Justice Department. Not the modern history, the entire history. Rich was accused of mega-crimes: millions in fraud, tax-evasion, and trading with the America’s enemies. In 2000, he was a fugitive. He had been one for nearly two decades, during which the government had expended immense resources in a futile attempt to apprehend him.
Mind you, flitting from country to country to avoid prosecution, as Rich was doing, is itself a felony. When Eric Holder aided and abetted Rich’s pardon effort, he was not only grossly violating the Justice Department policy it was his job to uphold; he was dealing with the agents of someone who was actively committing a serious federal crime. That’s why, when prosecutors deal with a fugitive’s representatives, the appropriate question is: “When is he going to turn himself in?” It’s not, as Holder essentially asked, “What can I do to help?”
Holder, then Clinton administration deputy attorney general, steered the fugitive toward a friendly Clinton insider: former White House Counsel Jack Quinn. That enabled the most-wanted fugitive to lobby the President directly — and in violation of an executive order barring lobbying by recently departed White House staffers — without nettlesome interference from the Justice Department’s long-established, procedurally rigorous pardon process. In order to protect the public, that process called for input from the case prosecutors and investigators. As Holder well knew, following it would have demonstrated beyond cavil that pardoning Rich would be an outrage, in violation of every DOJ guideline.
Moreover, Holder extended his helping hand with the crassest of motives: the careerist was hoping the influential Quinn would look favorably on Holder’s quest to become attorney general in a Gore administration. That is, Holder was actively soliciting help from Quinn (Vice President Gore’s former counsel and friend) at the very time he was providing invaluable help to Quinn’s fugitive client — first in unsuccessfully pushing Rich’s preposterous effort to settle the case without jail time with prosecutors in New York, then in overcoming the uniform objections of White House staffers to a Rich pardon.
And the cherry on top: The scenario in which Holder’s sell-out of Justice Department principle took place was scummy in every particular; multi-millionaire Rich’s ex-wife and staunchest supporter, Denise Rich, was making mega-bucks donations to Clinton causes (according to Time, $400,000 to the Clinton Library Fund, $10,000 to the Clinton Legal Defense Fund, and over $1 million to Democrat campaigns during the Clinton era — including $70,000 for the 2000 Senate campaign of Hillary Clinton, now Obama’s pick for secretary of State).
As they say, read the whole thing. It's a must-read piece because beyond this he goes into the connections Holder had to the pardoning of the FALN terrorists that Clinton pulled off at the last minute. This guy is up to his eyeballs in shady dealings int he background, and he seems perfectly willing to cut deals that could leave us vulnerable, or deals that will help him and let lawbreakers skate.
Holder is one we absolutely oppose, and we urge Republican senators to oppose him as well. Obama can find someone else -- someone better -- to be his AG. After all, his economic team looks good. He looks like he will be solid on defense issues, and even foreign policy given who his Secretary of State will be. (Enough groaning, guys. She can't do any worse than Madeline Half-bright did, and chances are, she'll do a better job than that old bag did. Betcha she won't get duped the way Madeline did by the NorKs.) But the lead guy at Justice shouldn't have the baggage that Holder has. That baggage speaks volumes of how he'd run things out of Justice, and that should have more than a couple people worried.
Publius II
posted by Syd And Vaughn | 12:42 PM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
Subscribe to Post Comments [Atom]
<< Home