Yesterday, Kathleen Sebelius emerged as the Obama administration's top choice to lead the department of Health and Human Services. I was disappointed, partially because I thought Rosa DeLauro would be a more effective, more progressive choice. However, Sebelius had a good run as insurance commissioner in Kansas, and is also a Governor, both of which give her solid experience for this role. And besides, at least the industry-supporting, health care-cutting Tennessee Governor Phil Bredesen didn't get the nod. So, Sebelius is both experienced, and way, way better than Bredesen.
Mainly, I was disappointed because Sebelius at HHS takes away what was by far our best chance to win Sam Brownback's open Senate seat in 2010. While we needed Sebelius to win that Senate seat, HHS didn't need Sebelius specifically, there are plenty of non-horrible Democrats who could have handled the job. This move reminds me of former Arizona Governor Janet Napolitano becoming director of Homeland Security. Not only was she our only chance to defeat John McCain for Senate in 2010, but because she has left the Arizona Governor became a Republican. So, our electoral prospects dimmed in multiple ways.
All of this makes me wonder about the thought process Napolitano and Sebelius had in accepting their new cabinet posts. Is heading up a large federal department really better than being a Governor, a Senator, or even both? It seems hard to believe, but, as I explain in the extended entry, in all likelihood it actually is.
You know, I have never seen so many Democratic activists so happy about what is apparently a major defeat for Democrats. Every blog post, and virtually every comment I read, is ecstatic. It kind of reminds me about how, after the 2006 elections, we were told that conservatives had actually won, so liberals should be upset.
Yes, it is truly awful that one less Republican will be in President Obama's cabinet. It is also "a blow" to President Obama and Democrats that Judd Gregg is so humiliated by this episode that he won't even seek re-election in 2010. And it is a terrible blow to progressives that the specific policy concerns of the three Congressional minority caucuses have more influence over White House policy than does the press corps' fascination with bipartisanship.
I'm devastated. What a huge blow. How will we ever recover from this terrible setback?
Again, this is fantastic news. Now, can we please get someone at least moderately progressive as a Commerce Secretary nominee?
Update (Chris): President Obama's statement is pretty great:
For Immediate Release February 12, 2009
STATEMENT FROM PRESS SECRETARY
ROBERT GIBBS
"Senator Gregg reached out to the President and offered his name for Secretary of Commerce. He was very clear throughout the interviewing process that despite past disagreements about policies, he would support, embrace, and move forward with the President's agenda. Once it became clear after his nomination that Senator Gregg was not going to be supporting some of President Obama's key economic priorities, it became necessary for Senator Gregg and the Obama administration to part ways. We regret that he has had a change of heart."
Update 2 (Chris): The timing of Gregg's withdrawal indicates it is part of the broader Republican attempts to oppose President Obama and the Democratic trifecta at all costs. TPM quotes a Democratic congressional staffer:
It's hard not to think that Gregg's withdrawal, with the grumbling about the census and the stimulus, was not timed to cause the most damage possible to the Obama administration. Releasing the statement just as Obama took the stage in Peoria was clearly designed to undermine the President's event. The fact he scheduled a presser only seems to confirm it. The classy exit would have been to wait til tomorrow afternoon to quietly bow out. Basically Gregg decided not just to politely decline, but rather to blow shit up and burn the bridge behind him. Do not think this portends good things for the wider political climate.
If the larger GOP strategy can be describe as putting all of their chips on "FAIL", this has to be seen as a significant addition to that pile, no?
(Via existenz in Quick Hits). Tonight, The New York Times has a new story about tomorrow's forthcoming announcement on the Obama administration's strategy for the second round of TARP money (that is, how the Obama administration will spend the second $350 billion of the Wall Street bailout). If the story is correct, it appears the corporatists in the Obama administration have prevailed over the populists / leftists in the administration on most areas of bailout strategy. This includes, most importantly, placing minimum to no conditions on how bailout recipients spend money, and a decision for the government to not take operational control of any banks.
The story is also a classic case of exactly why cabinet appointments make a huge difference in determining policy. Rather than all appointees simply following orders from President Obama, they take part in a vigorous debate on policy. In this case, corporatist Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner appears to have won on virtually all counts, even over senior administration advisors such as David Axelrod.
Current rumors on President Obama's candidate to head the department of Health and Human Services seem to be focusing on three candidates: Tennessee Governor Phil Bredesen, Connecticut Congresswoman Rosa DeLauro, and Kansas Govenror Kathleen Sebelius.
Kathleen Sebelius has emerged as a top contender, according to a "senior administration official" in what was undoubtedly a trial balloon style leak. She wouldn't be bad, as she has experience as insurance commissioner in Kansas. However, in moving to HHS, she would take away our only real shot at winning a Senate seat in 2010. Also, this might actually be an issue where major connections inside Congress are required, and Sebelius lacks that compared to DeLauro. She is probably less progressive than DeLauro, too.
While there haven't been any news reports on it that I can find, rumors are that Phil Bredesen visited the White House last week about the position. Even without confirmation of his visit, it is well known that Bredesen is under consideration. As a health care cutting Governor in bed with the insurance industry, Bredesen would simply be a terrible, awful choice for HHS. Rumors of his consideration have sparked a backlash from health care advocates, something that cannot be said about either Sebelius or DeLauro.
Lots of other names have been floated, including an active campaign to support Howard Dean for HHS, but these are the only three names I have seen associated with direct White House consideration.
If anyone else can find news stories linking any other names with actual White House consideration, rather than random speculation or advocacy group support, please list them in the comments.
Update: Oregon Senator Ron Wyden might also be in the mix. However, the main news story that started such speculation doesn't seem to connect him to actual consideration, just "one of several prominently mentioned in Washington, D.C., health-policy circles and in news stories and blogs." Also, the speculation has not been followed up with an recent buzz.
Wyden could be a decent pick, but he is so tied to specific health care legislation--The Healthy America Act--that I'm not sure he really works for the Obama administration.
My only reaction to Daschle's withdrawal from Health and Human Services is that I wish either Treasury Secretary Geithner or Defense Secretary Gates had been defeated, too.
Giethner, like Daschle, had tax issues, and yet he was confirmed by the Senate. Now, he is about to light hundreds of billions of dollars on fire as part of the biggest corporate welfare program in history. He also worked with the Bush administration in handling the first $350 billion of the bailout.
The three largest federal departments, in terms of budget outlays, are easily Treasury, Defense, and Health and Human Services. While I don't want to defend Daschle, I do wonder why nominees for the two other large federal departments--both of whom were directly tied to the Bush administration, both of whom have ethical questions, and both of whom are currently lighting hundreds of billions of dollars on fire--passed and Daschle was defeated. Why did Daschle have to fall on his sword, but Gates and Geithner did not? It is a worthwhile question to ask, and one of the few thoughts I have on the Daschle story.
All three of the Obama transition team leads charged with reviewing the Department of Transportation are privatization advocates. Not only that, but their private sector activities suggest that they stand to profit substantially from further privatization of the nation's transportation infrastructure (highways, bridges, tunnels, and so on).
Quick update on the possibility of Democrats reaching sixty seats in the Senate, and thus theoretically having enough Senators to render Republican filibusters impossible.
Anonymous Democratic sources indicate that New Hampshire Republican Senator, Judd Gregg, is now the leading choice for Commerce Secretary.
However, anonymous Republican sources indicate that Gregg would never accept the position unless he was replaced by a Republican in the Senate.
The Case for Becoming a Spacefaring Society:
Proposals for an Integrated US Space Policy by Jonathan Goff and Ferris Valyn
Throughout history, mankind has learned to master the environments around itself-developing new technologies to harness the elements to better our lives, improve our health and wellbeing, protect ourselves from others, and learn more about our position in the universe. In the past, mastering new environments, such as the developing of seafaring or aeronautics, has lead directly to substantial benefits for those nations which have chosen to take the lead.
While we have started to explore the next great environment-outer space and the planetary bodies of our solar system-such exploration by itself will not lead to a spacefaring society. The development of a truly spacefaring society-one that can master and tame this new environment, and harness its resources-is a more compelling vision than exploration alone, one that holds the potential for far greater benefits to our nation.
We strongly urge the new administration to make the development of a spacefaring society the focus of our nation's space policy.
From various news reports, it appears that President-elect Obama is beginning his final selection for NASA administrator. While I don’t have any specific names, I do have a few suggestions as to the qualities that the next NASA administrator should have.
So, the day after I break my left arm, Open Left crashes. Great. At least I'm getting all of 2009's bad luck out of the way early. Here are some items for Monday:
Beyond these articles, I don't know all that much about her, but anyone who can write this, in this unapologetic, euphemism-free and even impolitic tone, warning that the problem isn't merely John Yoo but Bush himself, repeatedly demanding "outrage," criticizing the Democratic Congress for legalizing Bush's surveillance program, arguing that we cannot merely "move on" if we are to restore our national honor, stating the OLC's "core job description" is to "say 'no' to the President," all while emphasizing that the danger is unchecked power not just for the Bush administration but "for years and administrations to come" -- and to do so in the middle of an election year when she knows she has a good chance to be appointed to a high-level position if the Democratic candidate won and yet nonetheless eschewed standard, obfuscating Beltway politesse about these matters -- is someone whose appointment to such an important post is almost certainly a positive sign. No praise is due Obama until he actually does things that merit praise, but it's hard not to consider this encouraging.
On December, Democrats extended their lead on Republicans in partisan self-identification to 8.7%, according to Rasmussen. That is our biggest lead since June, and bigger than any lead Democrats have held outside of the extended Clinton vs. Obama primary contest.
The Minnesota Supreme Court has rejected a key lawsuit from Norm Coleman, denying him his last chance to win. Franken will be declared the winner later today, but it still may take a while to get him into the Senate.
Tax cuts are being piled onto the stimulus in order to win Republican support. These cuts are now larger than Bush's, and are not just of the middle-class variety. Not good. We don't need Republican support, but Obama is seeking it anyway. My best guess is that this is a repeat of the Democratic leadership's strategy on the bailout. This way, Republicans won't be able to be able to say "I told you so" if it doesn't work, or if it becomes unpopular. Bad idea if you ask me, since we will be blamed if the country doesn't turn around, no matter what.
Or, maybe Obama considers bipartisanship good for its own sake, which would be sad.
But isn't it inherent in what President-elect Obama has done with his Cabinet - selecting so many strong personalities in his "Team of Rivals," including four former primary opponents - that one will maybe occasionally wander off the reservation?
"I think the far greater risk is assembling a group of people that whenever the president opens their mouth they all nod their heads in agreement," Gibbs said. The president-elect "wants and expects there to be disagreement within that room."
Twenty thousand people participated in the first user-generated press conference, which allowed the public to write and rank questions. The bailout, civil liberties and marijuana legalization were popular topics. The transition team's Internet director, Macon Phillips, said the queries "weren't only ones you'd expect from supporters, which is a good thing." Phillips did Internet outreach for the campaign, but he stressed that the objectives have shifted. "In the campaign we were organizing people. Now it's more conversational, trying to listen and engage people that weren't engaged in the campaign."
Over the past few months, Obama staff and supporters have sometimes taken on a totalitarian tone in response to Democratic and progressive criticism of Obama. You are probably familiar with the tunes in this pitch:
Or, just shut up to anyone who criticizes us at all, mostly famously from Obama advisors Hildebrand and Plouffe.
This tone is impossible to miss if you have lived online over the past year. However, through it all, the Obama campaign has both maintained a clear, public stance in favor of intra-party disagreement and, even more importantly, continued to create spaces (MyBO, Change.gov) that allowed for such disagreement (although the circumvention of Joe Anthony is a real exception). This has long been one of the fundamental tensions within the broader Obama movement, as an often top-down campaign met up with the largest grassroots activist outpouring in this country for about three decades. This tension is never going to disappear, as there will always be internal progressive and Democratic criticism of Obama, just as there will always be those Obama supporters who lash out against any such criticism for it's very existence. The important thing is that the spaces that allow for communication of disagreement remain intact. So far, that is something the Obama transition has definitely accomplished and, as the above quotes show, even openly sought out and encouraged. That is something they need to be congratulated and thanked for, and a reason to be positive heading into next year.
(Via VLaszlo in Quick Hits.) Sixteen years ago, President Clinton had some politically costly run-ins with the Pentagon early on in his presidency. Both "Don't Ask, Don't Tell," and Somalia were damaging to him in his first couple months, with Pentagon officials even referring to that time period as the "taming" of Bill Clinton. Obama appears to be doing whatever he can to avoid a similar fate, even if it means keeping a large number of Pentagon political appointees for an undetermined period of time:
Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates is asking many of the Bush administration's 250 Pentagon political appointees to remain on the job until the incoming Obama administration finds replacements -- a move designed to prevent a leadership vacuum with U.S. troops engaged in wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
The unusual request by Mr. Gates, whom President-elect Barack Obama has asked to continue in his Cabinet post, ensures that key policy positions will not be left to "acting" subordinates as typically occurs when political appointees are directed to resign during a presidential transition.
"I have received authorization from the president-elect's transition team to extend a number of Department of Defense political appointees an invitation to voluntarily remain in their current positions until replaced," Mr. Gates said in a Friday e-mail.
The chance to stay is "available to all willing political appointees with the exception of those who are contacted individually and told otherwise," he said.
Now, not al of the 250 political appointees are staying, as at least the second and third top positions at the Pentagon are being replaced. Also, it is likely that those who will stay on will be replaced fairly soon, given the wording of the email. However, given that Obama named his cabinet faster than any other President-elect, this slower transition at the Pentagon is indicative of a different strategy for the Department of Defense than for other areas of the government.
Now, if I am right, and Obama is engaging in a slower Pentagon transition in order to try and avoid politically costly fights with the Pentagon ala the early months of Clinton's Presidency, I am not sure why keeping either Gates or Bush political appointees on is the right approach. It seems to me that if anyone is likely to attempt sabotage of the early months of the Obama administration, it will be Bush political appointees at the Pentagon. In fact, this is already taking place in the form of the expansive military budget increases proposed by the Gates-led Pentagon. Such increases would seriously hamper Obama's ability to re-direct federal spending away from Bush-era patterns. Keeping on the people who have proposed said increases does not strike me as a good sign.
So, perhaps something else is going on with the slow transition at the Pentagon. Maybe it really just is wha the Washington Times says it is: the Obama team doesn't want any vacant positions, so they are asking people to stay on until the day their replacement arrives. I'm not sure why it is taking so long for those replacements to arrive. Whatever is going on, I can't say I am happy with any Bush political appointees sticking around. They caused the problem, now it is time for them to go.
I have been somewhat delinquent on this the last couple of days, but there are three recent cabinet picks I haven't said anything about:
Shaun Donovan, Housing and Urban Development: The chatter I have heard on Donovan from progressives behind the scene is generally positive. Seems smart, earnest, and perhaps a bit of a technocrat. I would put Donovan in the "cautiously optimistic" category.
Arne Duncan, Education: Given that Obama has generally tried to avoid factional fights, Duncan seemed like the obvious pick. He was the only candidate who was short-listed by both the "efficiency" faction and by the teachers. Combine this with his Chicago background, and he made perfect sense. Not sure if I am "meh" on this one or "cautiously optimistic." I guess if I am not sure, than I am "meh."
Tom Vilsack, Agriculture: As I noted before, there was never much hope for a progressive agriculture pick. I am wary of Vilsack, who was one-time chair of the DLC. However, he doesn't appear to be in the egregiously bad category that I was afraid of for this post. A bit of a disappointment but, considering my expectations for this post, not much of one.
Overall, there is a clear pattern where Obama is working to avoid any sort of factional fights within the institutional progressive / Democratic ecosystem with his picks. The strategy appears to be steering clear of rocking any boats within the broader media and political establishment as well. The basic policy seems to be conflict avoidance, above all else. This is, of course, exactly how Obama said he would govern during 2007-2008. While I am disappointed that more sweeping progressive change does not appear to be on the agenda, it is still striking change from the Bush / Cheney years. Obama is basically fulfilling his promises.
More left-wing Democrats will dominate the House leadership, and also be involved in the conservation among White House senior staff. Developments in the Senate are far less encouraging (Lieberman as committee chair, Reid still ineffective, Bayh forming Blue Dog Senate caucus). Still, while I am not terribly excited about the cabinet and the Senate, with a decent array of progressives among the White House senior staff and House leadership, progressives should have a voice in all major policy decisions during the next two years of the trifecta.
Hope is infectious when you are out of power, and the reality of taking power rarely meets your ideals. This is especially true if you are a left-wing Democrat, since your own party often works to distance itself from you. However, like a supermajority of Americans, I still hope that what the Obama administration ends up doing will turn the country around. Things are so bad right now, that even if I end up disagreeing with some of the legislation or appointments that the Obama administration makes, I still really really really hope everything they do works.
Earlier today, in a post entitled "Obama's Domination Of Democratic Opinion," I think I went too far in implying that there was no room at all for progressives to maneuver from Obama's left, and that the party will completely fall in line with whatever Obama wants. What I meant to state in the article is that Obama's ability to sway Democratic opinion on major issues, such as keeping Gates as Secretary of Defense, is simply a factor that progressives need to be aware of during the next four years. It is not, however, an immutable obstacle that will prevent any progressive maneuvering Obama does not directly sanction himself.
There are already at least three instances during the transition phase that indicate it is possible for progressives to exert outside influence on decisions made within the Obama camp: Secretary of Agriculture, Secretary of the Interior, and CIA Director. These instances indicate that President-elect Obama and his closest advisors are indeed listening to progressive pressure, and will consider it in at least some cases. Further, there is enough similarity in how pressure was successfully applied in these three cases, along with several cases where it was not successfully applied, that a roadmap for successful activism from Obama's left is already emerging.
I provide detail on these positive developments in the extended entry.
Consider the three examples I include in the extended entry.
The first round of questions for the transition team's change.gov website came to a close at midnight. The question
""Will you consider legalizing marijuana so that the government can regulate it, tax it, put age limits on it, and create millions of new jobs and create a billion dollar industry right here in the U.S.?"
is in the lead with 7,947 people liking this question, and 634 people not liking this question.
Overall the first round of questions generated a turnout of 978,947 votes on 10,303 questions from 20,462 people.
Now, I don't mean to mock the question, or the public in general, when I say "this is the sort of thing that can happen." Quite to the contrary, as I explain in the extended entry, half the country has used marijuana, more people are arrested each year for marijuana than for violent crime, the nation overwhelmingly favors reduction in marijuana penalties, it is very relevant to our economic downturn, and it is a question that simply has not been asked of the incoming administration in other forums. It should be asked, and I am glad it is on track to winning.
There is a finding in the new Pew poll that shows little ideological dissatisfaction with Obama's cabinet choices, especially on the left (PDF, page 23 of report, page 24 of PDF):
Most Americans also are satisfied with the ideological tenor of Obama's appointments: 68% say they are "about right," while 15% say they are too liberal and just 3% say they are too conservative. In particular, just 1% of liberal Democrats say Obama's choices are too conservative, despite grumbling among some activists on the left.
Talking Points Memo linked to this part of the Pew poll as their top headline for some of the day. In their write-up of the poll, they note:
The "angry left" notion is largely a media fiction, and in reality liberals who have raised questions about this or that appointment also are optimistic about other Obama decisions and are capable of holding more than one opinion about the entire Obama presidency.
With numbers like these, that is pretty hard to argue with. So, rather than arguing with it, I would actually like to take their conclusion a step further. The Pew numbers show not only that the "angry left" is largely a media fiction, but also that the country as a whole is not very invested in abstract ideological positioning.
Overall, only 18% of the country express ideological dissatisfaction with Obama's current cabinet appointments, according to the Pew poll. Eight years ago, according to the same Pew poll, only 28% of the country expressed ideological dissatisfaction with Bush's cabinet choice. Back then, 7% of the country thought Bush's cabinet picks were too liberal, while 21% though his picks were too conservative. The remaining 72% of the country either though that Bush's cabinet choices were "about right," or had not opinion on the ideological leanings of his picks.
If, eight years ago, 72% of the country registered no ideological dissatisfaction with Bush's cabinet picks, and if right now 82% of the country registers no ideological dissatisfaction with Obama's cabinet picks, either the last eight years have resulted in the largest ideological swing in the history of any nation, or the country simply is not very invested in broad ideological discussions of cabinet appointments.
I'm going with the latter. More in the extended entry.
If this comes to pass, mark it down in my "makes me excited" category of Obama's cabinet picks:
But officials close to the transition team privately say that Steven Chu, a Nobel Prize winning physicist, appears to be increasingly on track to become energy secretary.
A Chinese-American, Chu is a professor of physics and molecular and cell biology at the University of California-Berkeley and has been the director of the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory since 2004, where he has pushed aggressively for research into alternative energy as a way to combat global warming.
It is the oldest of the Energy Department's national laboratories, but does only unclassified work and in recent years under Chu has been at the center of research into biofuels and solar technologies. Chu has been a strong advocate for the need to engage scientists in the search for ways to combat global warming by replacing fossil fuels with other energy sources such as biofuels and the sun.
Placing a scientist at the head of the Department of Energy is very exciting to me, because we will be dealing with a true expert on the subject matter. Further, it is not just any scientist, but the scientist at the center of solar and biofuel research, meaning that industry lobbyists won't stand a chance when talking to him. Yet further, it means that his closest colleagues will also be alternative energy scientists, thus resulting in some excellent deputies and assistants. Even yet further, having a physicist like this in the cabinet means there will be a true science and technology expert within the cabinet, which could bleed over into decisions in other areas. This is someone who will know what is possible in the field, and who should make an excellent contribution to the nation and the world.
If you look at the history of the Department of Energy, you'll find that there's never been a Secretary who actually was an expert on energy. The closest we've ever gotten was Charles Duncan who had a chemical engineering degree and had a cup of coffee out of school at Humble (later Exxon). For some reason it just never occurred to the President to install a person who was qualified for the position.
Instead we've been subjected to a long line of career politicians, military men and folks that were as far away from energy as you could get (Reagan's first Secretary of Energy was an oral surgeon) . Is it any wonder that our energy policy is set by industry since the person who is supposed to do that doesn't have a clue?
Not only does Chu have a clue, he's a Nobel-prize winning scientist and is already working under the auspices of the Department of Energy at Lawrence Berkeley National Lab. A scientist, ya'll. As the Secretary of Energy. Oh. My. Gawd.
Steven Chu sounds like a great pick for Secretary of Energy to me. Hopefully, unlike Raul Grijalva for Interior, this one won't fall through in favor of a Blue Dog. There are other possibilities, and none of them can even come close to bringing the expertise of Chu.
Over at change.gov, the transition team has opened a new section of the website where you can submit a question of 250 characters or less, where it then is made public. People vote on the best questions, and because they are public, it will be difficult for them to duck answering a question. here is the link: http://change.gov/page/content...
The problem here is this bizarre need to decide one way or the other whether the entire left is or isn't irrevocably dismayed with the Obama presidency and whether it has or hasn't completely given up hope on it.
This is fairly straightforward. Some liberals have concerns about this or that particular appointment or this or that particular policy statement. They're voicing those concerns. That doesn't make "the left" as a whole unhappy with Obama's entire presidency. Those same liberals are happy about other things Obama's doing, and many of them are generally optimistic. Believe it or not, people can simultaneously entertain more than one opinion about Obama's evolving administration.
The problem here is the desire that the news orgs have to tell a simplistic story about those poor, sad, delusional lefties whose silly idealism blinded them to Obama's "pragmatism" and "centrism."
Developing a one-line description of what "the left" think about the entire Obama administration is a silly enterprise lacking any investigative seriousness. It is, instead, an attempt to create a simple drama pitting two not very well fleshed out characters ("the left" and "the Obama administration") against one another. Dozens of news organizations have sought to use me as one of those characters, recycling two quotes of mine from three weeks ago as somehow representative of a vast anti-Obama uprising among foolish, idealist, hard-left bloggers.
Of course, not only is such a narrative too simplistic in its depiction of "the left," which is a vast and diverse institution, it isn't even an accurate portrayal of me. I, like "the left," think a lot of different things about "the Obama transition." Further, the Obama transition, like "the left," is a vast an ongoing process that cannot be accurately described in a single sentence. There are many constituent parts of the Obama transition, which is in the process of hiring 8,000 people. There are many internal debates within the transition, which is not a monolithic reflection of the inside of Obama's mind. There are debates inside and outside the Obama campaign. Not only is that a good thing, but those debates also tend to be over specific appointments and policies, rather than vagaries about "the left" or "pragmatism."
I don't know why so many news organizations are struggling to pay their bills these days, but I can't imagine that using people to fit into a simplistic, pre-established narrative about something that is actually complex--and very important--is helping that much. Granted, my little media outlet is far smaller and generates far less revenue than most, so perhaps I don't have the secret to media profitability. However, I think news consumers are better informed and smarter than they are often given credit for being by news producers. This belief comes from having to deal directly with many of the people who consume my website on a daily basis. If you write something that is inaccurate, then some of them will know it is inaccurate, and tell you right away, every single time you do it. Although there are exceptions, devolving into the simplistic is often the same as devolving into the inaccurate, and it might be turning off a lot of consumers who now have the ability to consume news elsewhere.
Current rumors on President Obama's candidate to head the department of Health and Human Services seem to be focusing on three candidates: Tennessee Governor Phil Bredesen, Connecticut Congresswoman Rosa DeLauro, and Kansas Govenror Kathleen Sebelius.
