-
Change Long Overdue: Ken Salazar Meets the Interior Department.
Tweet Share on Facebook December 18, 2008 Comment (7)By John Aloysius Farrell, Thomas Jefferson Street blog.
U.S. Senator Ken Salazar, who's been named by Barack Obama as the incoming Secretary of the Interior, is a good guy. He is an independent Democrat from southern Colorado, where his ranching family has lived for generations. Four years ago, when he won his seat in the Senate, he demonstrated, to national Democrats, his party's revived potential in the Mountain West. He has an enviable quality for a politician: like Ronald Reagan, folks tend to underestimate him.
Salazar is a moderate. When other Democrats turned their backs, he loyally maintained his friendship with Sen. Joe Lieberman, the traitor from Connecticut. Salazar's first shining moment in the Senate came when Republicans threatened to "nuke" the federal judicial selection process, and he joined with Sen. John McCain in the gang of a dozen centrist Republicans and Democrats who defused that confrontation.
I'm thinking that neither industry nor the professional environmental movement is entirely thrilled with Salazar's appointment to Interior. Yet not terribly angry either. Democrats out West tend to side with the tree-huggers, while recognizing the place that resource development and the recreation industries have in the regional and national economy. I have no doubt that Salazar will make sound, deliberate—maybe even cautious—changes in federal stewardship of the public lands.
Salazar's real challenge—as well as his historic opportunity, and political potential—lies not in policy, but in management. I have lived a life watching crooks in Washington and cannot remember a federal agency so mismanaged, gutted, demoralized and corrupted as George W. Bush's Department of the Interior.
-
We Could Do Much Worse Than Caroline Kennedy and Other Dynasty Senate Candidates
Tweet Share on Facebook December 17, 2008 Comment (12)By Michael Barone, Thomas Jefferson Street blog
There have been lots of complaints in blogs, liberal as well as conservative, about the (apparently) impending appointment of Caroline Kennedy to the Senate and the impending Senate appointments in other states—Illinois, Delaware, Colorado—to seats made vacant by the election of the Obama-Biden ticket or his cabinet appointments. There’s a dynastic element in all four states. Caroline Kennedy would not, after all, be a plausible nominee for the Senate but for the fact that she’s the daughter of John and Jacqueline Kennedy. The Delaware seat is going to a longtime Joe Biden aide, Ted Kaufman, apparently to keep it warm for Joe Biden’s son Beau Biden, who is currently the elected attorney general of Delaware and is also serving in the military in Iraq. A leading possibility to succeed Colorado’s Ken Salazar (on whose appointment I’ve written about in another blog post) is his brother, Rep. John Salazar. And in Illinois, we have the delicious Blagoscandal, with the appointment still the legal prerogative of the son-in-law of 33rd Ward Democratic Committeeman Dick Mell (that would be Gov. Rod Blagojevich) and with one of the hopefuls being Rep. Jesse Jackson Jr.
-
Jamaica's Story: An Unlikely Happy Ending to a Horse Slaughter Case
Tweet Share on Facebook December 17, 2008 Comment (12)By Bonnie Erbe, Thomas Jefferson Street blog.
There are few happy endings in animal slaughter cases. America blinds itself to the misery it causes in the animal world. Too few Americans have woken up to the scientifically-proven fact animals have feelings and emotions just as we do. Slaughter for them is no less harrowing than it would be for a human animal in the same situation.
Here, however, is a slaughter story to celebrate.
-
8 Books For Barack Obama
Tweet Share on Facebook December 17, 2008 Comment (1)By Robert Schlesinger, Thomas Jefferson Street blog.
If you haven't seen it, noted presidential scholar Stephen Hess (who got his start as a speechwriter for Dwight D. Eisenhower) has a new book out, aimed at Barack Obama but shared with the rest of us: What Do We Do Now? A Workbook for the President-Elect. Why am I shamelessly plugging someone else's book? Because he graciously plugs mine: According to Washingtonian, Hess lists White House Ghosts: Presidents and Their Speechwriters among eight books the incoming chief executive should read.
I'm unhappy to report that Obama has not yet been spotted reading either What Do We Do Now or White House Ghosts. Maybe they're on his Christmas list?
-
Obama's Pick of Ken Salazar for Interior Suggests Nonrestrictionist Environmental Policies
Tweet Share on Facebook December 17, 2008 Comment (3)By Michael Barone, Thomas Jefferson Street blog
The policies of Bruce Babbitt, secretary of the interior during the entire Clinton administration, were widely unpopular in large parts of the noncoastal West, including the interior parts of Washington and Oregon. The unpopularity of these policies helped George W. Bush win record-high percentages of votes in these regions and in 2000 carry every Rocky Mountain state but New Mexico (which he then carried in 2004). By 2008, memory of the Babbitt policies had faded, Democrats had added many new voters (a large percentage of them Hispanic) to the rolls, and Barack Obama carried Colorado, Nevada, and New Mexico (19 electoral votes) by comfortable margins and came within a smidgen of carrying Montana (3 electoral votes). He ran behind, but not far behind, in eastern Oregon and eastern Washington, and the Republican margins in those regions did not come close to overcoming the Democratic leads in metro Portland and metro Seattle, as they did in 2000 (18 electoral votes).
-
OPEC Helps Cure Our Oil Addiction
Tweet Share on Facebook December 17, 2008 Comment (5)By John Aloysius Farrell, Thomas Jefferson Street blog.
That is an interesting meeting going on in Algeria today.
Our good friends the Russians are joining our good friends the Saudis and our good friends the Iraqis and our good friends the Iranians and our other good friends in OPEC, seeking to raise the price of oil in the midst of a worldwide recession.
We're down, and they are going to put it to us.
-
Polls Show Auto Bailout Supporters Need to Convince the Public
Tweet Share on Facebook December 16, 2008 Comment (9)Pollster.com's Mark Blumenthal provides the answers in a blog post that is a model of poll analysis. Blumenthal points out that for many respondents, faced with a choice of positions on an issue that they're not familiar with and haven't thought much about, question wording can make a great deal of difference. Bottom line: "The fact that six of the nine pollsters show net opposition to the bailout—especially among those with more concise questions—suggests that the onus is on bailout proponents to make the case to the American public for passage." Another way to look at it: There seem to be more firmly committed opponents than firmly committed proponents of the bailout.
This is something George W. Bush and Henry Paulson might want to keep in mind as they come up with terms and conditions for the TARP funds they are preparing to disburse to General Motors and Chrysler (Ford just wants a line of credit).
-
Democrats Bring Good News for the Environment
Tweet Share on Facebook December 16, 2008 Comment (2)By Bonnie Erbe, Thomas Jefferson Street blog
While the Bush administration has been busy destroying the environment, Congress, on the other hand, has passed some wonderful legislation protecting animals this year and last. The Humane Society has a report summarizing bills passed during the 110th session of Congress, which just concluded.
-
Caroline Kennedy Should Replace Hillary Clinton in the Senate
Tweet Share on Facebook December 16, 2008 Comment (24)By John Aloysius Farrell, Thomas Jefferson Street blog
Break my heart
I want to go and cry
It's so sad to watch a sweet thing die
Oh, Caroline why
—The Beach BoysLet's cut to the chase. I think it is a fine idea if New York Gov. David Paterson appoints Jack and Jackie Kennedy's daughter Caroline to the U.S. Senate.
-
Bush Interior Hacks Endangered More Species
Tweet Share on Facebook December 16, 2008 Comment (7)By Bonnie Erbe, Thomas Jefferson Street blog.
The Bush administration's actions have been rife with outrageous misappropriation of government power for personal gain, environmental destruction, and the politicization of science. But as outrageous as they have been, few have been as baldly self-serving as this:
