Arlen Specter to caucus with Dems

I've been on a bit of a hiatus from Exurbs to jump into the creative writing pool and catch up on some movies I've been meaning to see for the last three years or so. (Anyone heard of this movie "Sicko"???)

However, the news of Arlen Specter jumping ship from the GOP demands commentary. The spin machines of the myriad interest groups are going at such full tilt, I think they could power the eastern seaboard for a week. To be sure, everyone has a take on it, many of them valid. Certainly Specter was facing an uphill primary challenge from Pat Toomey. It seemed unlikely Toomey could win in a Pennsylvania general election, but the first hurdle is the Republican voters of the primary election, and Toomey is a party-line conservative who would likely have sailed past Specter.

But to then say that Specter's decision to switch parties was entirely one of political expediency (as reliable blowhards Michael Steele and John Cornyn did) misses the point entirely. Salon's Alex Koppelman got it right. It is precisely because Specter followed principle on the stimulus package - voting for it because he felt it helped avoid utter economic disaster - that he is now so vulnerable against Toomey.

Michael Steele and the Republican party have made it very clear that they would like to exact retribution against Senators Specter, Collins, and Snowe for their cooperation with the Obama administration. Party hardliners will not allow any dissent in their ranks. Its becoming a disturbing pattern, with elected officials having to pay homage to right wing radio comedians rather than speak their minds.

The tent is indeed shrinking. I'm not convinced that Arlen Specter will be at all a complicit Democrat. He has shown his determination to do what he thinks is right, even in the face of extreme Party pressure. And I certainly disagree with many of his political values, and the need to win Specter's vote will continue to mean a watering down of the Obama administration's agenda items.

But if welcoming Arlen Specter into the Democratic party aids in the demise of a GOP that values Christian absolutism and torture, is anti-choice and homophobic, is dogmatically terrified of the "other", well then Welcome Aboard, Senator. Its good to have you.

Austan Goolsbee: FOUND

I don't know why I'm so enamored of Austan Goolsbee (aside from his sexy/geeky name). This wunderkind of the Obama campaign's economic advisors, I suspect Goolsbee of being a genius, and I was a little brokenhearted when his name didn't appear in the ranks of the new Obama administration.

But Goolsbee has been found. Per NPR via AP, Goolsbee will direct Obama's outside economic advisory board:

Obama Names Outside Economic Advisory Board

NPR.org, February 6, 2009 · Choosing from corporate boardrooms, labor unions and academia, President Obama named a team of outside economic advisers Friday that he says he will turn to for help in boosting the sagging U.S. economy.

As promised in November, the president signed an executive order that creates the Economic Recovery Advisory Board, headed by former Federal Reserve Chairman Paul Volcker.

Obama introduced members of the team at a White House ceremony Friday morning. Volcker will serve as chairman. Austan Goolsbee, one of three members of the president's Council of Economic Advisers, will be the group's staff director and chief economist.

Board members include:

William H. Donaldson, who served as SEC chairman from 2003 to 2005
Roger W. Ferguson, Jr., president and CEO of the TIAA-CREF retirement fund
Robert Wolf, chairman and CEO of the financial services firm UBS Group Americas
David F. Swensen, CIO of Yale University
Mark T. Gallogly, founder and managing partner of the investment advisory firm Centerbridge Partners LP
Penny Pritzker, chairman and founder of Pritzker Realty Group
Jeffrey R. Immelt, CEO of General Electric
John Doerr, a partner with the venture capital firm Kleiner, Perkins, Caufield & Byers
Jim Owens, chairman and CEO of the heavy equipment manufacturer Caterpillar Inc.
Monica C. Lozano, publisher and CEO of the Spanish-language newspaper La Opinion
Charles E. Phillips Jr., president of the computer software maker Oracle Corp.
Anna Burger, secretary-treasurer of the Service Employees International Union and chairwoman of the labor coalition Change to Win
Richard L. Trumka, secretary-treasurer of the labor organization AFL-CIO
Laura D'Andrea Tyson, who served as a key economic adviser to President Bill Clinton and is dean of the Haas School of Business at the University of California, Berkeley
Martin Feldstein, George F. Baker Professor of Economics at Harvard University

The announcement came as employers eliminated 598,000 jobs in January, the most since the end of 1974, and the unemployment rate soared to 7.6 percent.

In a statement, the White House said the board will offer independent advice in regular briefings to the president, vice president and their economic team.

The White House said the board's initial focus will be programs to "jump-start economic growth."

From NPR reports and The Associated Press

Liberal hand-wringing over Obama appointments

I am a liberal progressive sushi-eating anti-war Democrat and I like Barack Obama's appointments to-date.

There. I needed it stated somewhere.

Am I the only self-described progressive who is OK with the Obama-admin-to-be? I keep hearing the commentariate talk about how all of us are just groaning with each new nomination. Are you groaning? Are you wailing about how Obama is abandoning the movement? Are you lamenting that Obama is ignoring the progressive MANDATE that his election proves?

If you are, I think A) you're a little bit full of crap, and B) you do not speak for me.

Yes, Barack Obama's election was a rejection of the Bush administration. It does not follow that his election is an embrace of progressive ideology. There are not two choices: Bush or Progressive. In this election, there was Bush and Other. The country chose Other.

Certainly the string of Democratic victories (can two cycles be called a "string of victories"?) can be seen as a continuing rejection of Bush. But what exactly about Bush are the voters rejecting? Fundamentalism in government? Neoconservativism? Free-market capitalism?

See, I've been hearing the punditocracy speaking for Progressives. They say that we say that Obama's election means that voters reject all of it. I think that's dumb.

Some voters are rejecting capitalism without regulation. Not capitalism in toto.

Some voters are rejecting evangelical ideology in place of policy. Not religion in government.

Some voters are rejecting cowboy interventionist policy. They've not become peaceniks.

Barack Obama and John McCain became the nominees of their respective parties because they promised to move away from partisan politics. They did not promise to reverse the polarity of the current brand of partisanship in Washington. Obama is making sense-based nominations. (Imagine: nominating an Ambassador to the UN who thinks it is a relevant body!) He is not balancing one Republican for every Democrat.

In general, I'm happy and comfortable and comforted by the decisions the President-Elect is making.

And while we're at it, let us remember that the man isn't actually President yet. Let's refrain from piling on what we think he is going to do. Please?