The right vs. wrong way to staff an administration

Post-election news this week is all about who Obama is choosing for his administration. You can do your own searches. There are reports about who he’s already picked, some media outlets are speculating about who else he might pick, and you can even find out who’s lobbying for what positions. One thing's for sure is that we all hope he picks the right people, because there is definitely and right way and a wrong way to staff a presidential administration.

For all of the Bush failures that caught us off guard, there were an equal number that could have been, and in many cases were, anticipated. We saw it coming. We knew it because of the way Bush chose his people. We’ve all heard about the penchant he’s had for cronyism, and that’s certainly part of it – payback to his political donors was always just beneath the surface of every decision he made. People have often called the Bush administration incompetent, and that gets us closer, but what I’m really getting at is the WILLFUL incompetence. In many ways they were incompetent on purpose, and it all began with the people Bush chose for important positions. Bush stacked the deck by choosing people who would make all but certain that governmental departments did a poor job at their intended purpose. And yes, ultimately, it benefited the big corporations that make up the Republican donor base.

Take the Consumer Product Safety Commission for example – an agency that’s a thorn in the side of big business with all the regulations and safety procedures it imposes. But the Consumer Product Safety Commission is supposed to do just that – insure the safety of US consumers. And how’s that been going under the Bush Administration? Remember all those dangerous Chinese toys laden with lead paint? How do you suppose it became such a problem? Bush appointed to be its head lobbyist Michael E. Baroody:

Baroody is the executive vice president of the National Association of Manufacturers (NAM). NAM is one of the nation's largest trade groups and it opposes aggressive product safety regulation.

and commissioner Nancy Nord, who was so pro-business that she refused to adequately run the agency even after the lead paint problems turned up.

What about the E.coli in spinach, poison pet food, tainted tomatoes and people dying from untested prescription drugs (not to mention the politicization of safety decisions regarding birth control)? It was the FDA that failed again and again. Who has run the FDA? Lester Crawford, a former executive for the National Food Processors Association, religious zealot David Hager, and Andrew von Eschenbach, a man with strong ties to the pharmaceutical industry and Wall Street. Again, foxes guarding the henhouse – sure, an over-used phrase, but no other is as fitting.

Bush appointed an antitrust lawyer to head the FTC, Tom Coburn who opposes sex education to his Advisory Council on HIV/AIDS, James Holsinger who thinks religion makes good medicine as Surgeon General, and his own lawyer as Attorney General. He even set up a union busting Department of Labor! The list goes on.
 
The Bush administration has been plagued with failure since the start – and specifically, failures of the government to do the very things we depend on government to do. This happened because Bush appointed people who would place priority on protecting the profits of big business instead of us.

So what of Obama? What will he do? How will he make his choices?

For Obama, hope may turn out to be more than just a marketing term. It’s widely speculated that Obama may choose environmental lawyer and  hero Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to head the Environmental Protection Agency – even the thought of which strikes joy into the hearts of environmentalists who’ve had their concerns ignored, even ridiculed, for so long. Sadly, having someone who cares as much about the environment as RFK does heading the Environmental Protection Agency is something we haven’t seen for a long while. And who did George pick for Secretary of Interior? Gale Norton, a woman who, after trying to ruin Colorado, went to Washington to weaken wildlife protections and open our most precious lands to drilling and mining on a national level.

It will be refreshing to see Obama appoint people who care. Some of these might be John Edwards who, rumors held; Obama would create a Poverty Czar cabinet position for. (Truth be told, it was Hillary’s idea first.) His scandal aside, poverty is Edwards’ life’s work and there is no better person to head up such a department. We may see Bill Richardson and Colin Powell in crucial roles and maybe a few informed consumer protection activists in roles where they can help protect people from harm.

We eagerly watch as Obama draws his cards, and hang on to all the hope Obama sold us – in hopes that he won’t stack the deck like the last dealer did.