Obama Denies Abandoning his Promise of “Change”

 As I wrote about here, president-elect Barack Obama has drawn some criticism from the left while getting some praise from the right for some of his cabinet picks. His choices of several political insiders for his cabinet have drawn the ire of some of those on the left who believe that he is breaking his promise of “change.” 

 The voices must be getting loud enough because president-elect Obama has had to publicly deny that he has abandoned his “change” promise.

Barack Obama defended his decision to pack his new Cabinet with veteran Washington insiders and former Clinton officials yesterday after a campaign in which he promised change.

 His biggest critics so far seem to be coming from the left who feel that by choosing Washington insiders Barack Obama has deserted the message that he sent to them.

There have been mounting concerns, particularly from the liberal wing of his Democratic Party, that Mr Obama has pivoted sharply to the centre-right with his choice of top Cabinet posts.

 The ironic part about this is the fact that all of the insiders that Obama has chosen are from the Clinton administration. The left has for years told us how much better the country was when Bill Clinton was president so why would they be opposed to bringing back most of the team that Bill Clinton had? The truth is that Barack Obama needs to surround himself with people who have experience to make up for his lack of experience and that is what he is doing.

“What we are going to do is combine experience with fresh thinking,” Mr Obama said at his third press conference in as many days. He said he would be foolish, at such a “critical time in our history”, to pick people who “had no experience in Washington whatsoever”.

 When the people elect a man with no experience we better damn sure hope that he aligns himself with people who have some experience, even if we feel their policies are wrong. Somebody in the administration needs to have experience to draw from and it isn’t Obama.

 But there is one more interesting aspect to this whole issue and that is how the right suddenly seems okay with Obama’s choices of Clinton insiders. Barack Obama is drawing most of his criticism from his base but the right seems more content with his choices so far. Did Barack Obama set the bar so far to the left that Clinton administration appointees seem middle of the road enough to please the right? Did they think that his cabinet picks would be so far to the left that they actually can get on board with his more moderate choices so far?

 I think that that has allot to do with both the criticism from the left and the acceptance from the right. Barack Obama promised change, but he also promised to bring the country together. He promised to unite us. The far lefts idea of unity is to drag conservatives kicking and screaming over to their side. They are not willing to make concessions and when Barack Obama won the presidency they felt as though the whole country had to bow down to them and agree with them in the name of country unity. There is no give and take. So now that president-elect Obama has chosen Washington insiders for his cabinet they feel betrayed.

 Did they really think that he was going to fill his whole cabinet with Washington outsiders, if so they are just naive. Or did they just want him to fill his cabinet with far leftists? That might be a popular decision with the far left but if Obama did that he would stand no chance at uniting the country.

 Barack Obama promised change but he also promised unity. He is walking a tight-rope between holding on to his far left base while also trying to gain the confidence of the moderate to right leaning Americans. He is trying to strike a balance and for that the far left is getting anxious.