The cabinet is filling out. Arizona Governor Janet Napolitano is reported to be Obama’s selection to head the troubled Homeland Security Department. I think this is another excellent appointment. She certainly has experience with the illegal immigration issue.
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BooMan
Martin Longman a contributing editor at the Washington Monthly. He is also the founder of Booman Tribune and Progress Pond. He has a degree in philosophy from Western Michigan University.
It would be better to disband that department. It is a part of Bush’s legacy that we could all do without very nicely.
I concur and what might become a common refrain in the days and months ahead: can we afford such a wasteful use of our money? Foreign wars, missile defense – which doesn’t work anyway – bank bail outs and a host of questionable government expenditures may all become too costly for a culture in financial depression. Huge changes are a coming, IMO.
This would be an intrinsic part of true progressive governance, but I don’t think we’re going there.
At least strip out FEMA. It never belonged there in the first place
While it is part of Ws legacy, Congress was the one to call for it and it was created over Ws objections, though he didn’t choose to veto it.
In execution the stink is all on him
It was Joe Lieberman’s baby.
Actually, I think she’s a good appointment. But I hate the name “Homeland Security” sound like something W thought up. US Dept. of ___. would sound better.
It IS something W thought up. Both the name and the concept are too W-esque. Get rid of it completely.
why does it not work, what needs to be fixed? just wondering
As for FEMA, it had actually gotten pretty well fixed under Clinton after years of ineptitude and patronage appointments. They had become quite professional in their approach and there was clear career advancement paths.
When they got rolled into DHS they suddenly were taking orders from outside their own organization from people who didn’t really get it. And hacks like Brownie took over.
The best people realized there was no real future there and left, creating a lot of brain drain. Katrina was as much about the loss of their expertise as it was about W’s incompetence.
Today, it still doesn’t have a lot to do with the DHS’s main mission and there is little benefit in trying to coordinate operations with them.
the effect this will have in Arizona will be disastrous.
Yeah, I thought she was supposed to run against McCain in 2010.
more than likely, it will now be Attorney General Terry Goddard. The vacancy this will create in the immediate will give us a Republican governor, SoS Jan Brewer, who will appoint a Republican SoS to fill the slot she vacates. Our state legislature is controlled in both chambers by the GOP and are batshit crazy. Disastrous consequences now that we won’t have the power of the veto.
Hey, Janet, if you see your Senate counterpart Joe “Ho'” Leiberman walking around with a knife, don’t turn your back.
Seems like a good, bold choice to name a smart, capable woman to a spot reserved until now for thuggish creeps. It also underlines the tragedy of letting Lieberman be her Senate saboteur.