With all the Scandals Involving Democrat Candidates, Obama Turns to a Republican as Commerce Secretary

 It is being reported that Judd Gregg will indeed be President Obama’s pick for  Commerce Secretary. When I first heard that President Obama was leaning towards Senator Gregg I immediately thought that this was a conspiracy to help the Democrats gain a 60 vote majority. And it may have been. Senator Gregg only agreed to take the position after he was promised by Governor Lynch that a Republican would replace him. Perhaps a conspiracy was thwarted or perhaps there is another reason why President Obama picked a Republican for this position.

 Sure President Obama has had all of his nominees appointed, with the exception of Bill Richardson and hopefully Tom Daschle, but they have been very embarrassing to him. Hillary Clinton’s selection as Secretary of State is a clear conflict of interest with her husband gallivanting the globe accepting money from the same foreign leaders that she must negotiate with (not to mention the unconstitutionality of the pick); Bill Richardson having to withdraw his nomination for Commerce Secretary for illegal campaign donations; Timothy Geithner evading taxes; Tom Daschle also evading taxes; and Rahm Emanuel in conversations with Rod Blagojevich about selling Obama’s vacant senate seat. Did I miss any? I probably did.

 President Obama couldn’t afford another public relations hit with another ill advised cabinet pick and with so many Democrats already involved in one scandal or another perhaps he feared he couldn’t pick another Democrat. Or perhaps he couldn’t find a clean, qualified Democrat to appoint Commerce Secretary. So President Obama did the only thing that he could do, he turned to the Republicans. The only conspiracy here would be an attempt by Obama to rescue his faltering image as the man who would bring change to Washington. It has been business as usual in Washington since Obama took the oath of office. Nothing has changed. Corrupt politicians are rewarded. Tax cheats are forgiven. And the band plays on.

 President Obama has shown a certain lack of judgement or at least a lax vetting process and he could not suffer another embarrassing pick so he turned to a man who has played by the rules and that man could only be found on the other side of the aisle. Bill Richardson certainly was not that man, Judd Gregg was.

 The only problem with the Gregg pick is that he doesn’t seem to fit in with all of the other suspect picks that Obama has made.