Sunday, December 07, 2008

He's Got To Screw Up Soon...

But not on this one. President-Elect Obama is reportedly (and that tends to mean intentionally leaked) tapping Fmr. Gen. Eric Shinseki to head up the VA. You may remember Shinseki telling Congress in the run-up to the Iraq war that a successful occupation would require more troops, more time and more money than the Bush administration was letting on. Shinseki retired from the army soon after. Obama's plans for the VA (like most of his plans) are ambitious. He wants to give Iraq and Afghan War vets the same treatment as World War II vets. He campaigned on fixing military hospitals and providing better assistance to soldiers and their families upon leaving the forces. Shinseki is unlikely to downplay the problems that face the VA; that is exactly what Obama will need if he is going to extract funding from a bankrupt (almost literally) Congress. The base will love seeing the guy who stood up to Bush in office. The right won't be able to a former army chief of staff in the job. While there are questions surrounding his picks at Treasury (Bailout), Justice (Clinton pardons) and State (Billary redux?), Obama's cabinet is shaping up to be a tour de force. There are no weak links in this chain.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...
This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
Andy said...

True, although people generally tend to be impressed with cabinet selections before they've actually done anything. For example, Rumsfeld was considered a pretty savvy choice by Bush Jr. and was extremely popular with the media.

All views expressed in this blog are those of the author and the author alone. They do not represent the views of any organization, regardless of the author's involvement in any organizations.

All comments are the views of the individual writer. The administrator reserves the right to remove commentary which is offensive.

The author is not responsible for nor does he support any of the advertisements displayed on the page