Has Rush Limbaugh finally turned into a liability for the Republican Party? That would be delicious for liberals

One progressive group is trying to use Limbaugh as a blunt object against Republican senators who might vote against President Barack Obama's stimulus package, which passed the House with absolutely no Republican votes on Wednesday. Americans United for Change--which has joined with MoveOn.org, SEIU and AFSCME to air television ads targeting five GOP senators in four states--has launched a 60-second radio spot against three other Senate GOPers, and the commercial's main ammo is Limbaugh. The three senators in this line of fire are John Ensign of Nevada, George Voinovich of Ohio, and Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania.

The commercial notes that Limbaugh has declared that he hopes Obama fails, and it asks whether these senators will side with the radio loudmouth or with Obama. You can hear it here. And the script:

The stimulus bill that the House passed on Wednesday night is not perfect. No doubt, it includes spending projects and tax cuts that are not all that stimulus-y. But it's the only train at the station these days. So even though the Republicans had threatened to withhold their votes from the bill, it was sort of surprising that not a single GOPer voted for the bill. In essence, the House GOPers are betting the farm on further economic collapse. They are truly selling short.

The House Republicans are now on record as wannabe obstructionists. They say they will continue to play a role in the bill when the House and Senate negotiate the final legislation after the Senate approves its version of the measure. But the House Republicans have lost any claim of authorship. If the stimulus package has any positive results, the GOPers will be out in the cold. President Obama and Democrats will not be shy about reminding voters that the Republicans were the Party of No when it came time to save the economy. The Rs can only hope--politically--that no good comes from this stimulus.

Most, if not all, of the House Republicans will probably not face much electoral trouble for their thumb's down. The Republicans who remain in the House generally hail from conservative districts. Call it Limbaugh Land. There are not many swing-district Republicans remaining. For the House Republicans still in their seats, voting against a spending bill will not cause them much direct political risk back home. But this collective, lockstep action does define the entire Republican Party. And GOPers running for office in non-Limbaugh areas--and that will include presidential candidates in the future--will have this albatross around their neck. (For his part, Obama ought to reconsider his approach to bipartisan politics.)

Tip O'Neill once famously said that all politics is local. That may be true. But even if these House members have scored points in their districts by opposing the stimulus, they are tainting their party's national image. They now have no choice but to root for the economy to continue its collapse. Then they can blame Obama and the Dems for making things worse (or not making them better) and wasteful spending. That's not much of a political strategy. But they've decided to stay off the bus--and wish for the bus to go flying off a cliff.

STEVE CLEMONS AND ME. Did I die? Clemons writes something of an obit for me at his blog. Seriously, it's very nice. And, yes, that's my ear next to Ben Affleck. I prefer the photo in front of the White House.

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Those folks who bother to worry about the war in Afghanistan--not a large slice of the population--had reason to fret on Wednesday morning when they picked up (or clicked on) the New York Times and read a front-page story noting that President Barack Obama is adopting a new "approach to Afghanistan that will put more emphasis on waging war than on development." The piece cited unnamed senior administration officials.

At a press briefing on Tuesday, White House press secretary Robert Gibbs had said that the administration was in the early stage of reevaluating Afghanistan policy. He had noted that Obama intended to meet with US Army General David McKiernan, the commander of the NATO-led forces in Afghanistan, to discuss the course ahead. It seemed as if no decisions had been rendered about Afghanistan.

Yet the Times indicated key calls have already been made:

Yesterday, during the White House daily press briefing, I was pondering what question to ask. It really didn't matter because I was not called on. (I cannot complain. Press secretary Robert Gibbs pointed at me during his first briefing last week.) But one query I was considering was about background briefings at the White House. I wrote about this last week, noting that when one reporter had asked Gibbs why the White House wouldn't ID two officials who had given a background briefing regarding the executive orders on Gitmo and torture, other journalists in the White House press room chuckled and Gibbs dodged the question. Seems to me that a White House hailing transparency and accountability might want to explain its use of background briefings (during which senior officials give reporters info that the journos can cite, as long as they don't identify the officials.)

This may seem an insider-y issue. (My other questions concerned global warming and Afghanistan.) But it is symbolic. And my friend Jack Shafer, Slate's media writer, has joined the cause. On Monday, he penned (or is it tapped?) a column on the matter. He writes:

At Robert Gibbs' first briefing as White House press secretary last Thursday, I asked if President Obama had decided not to use the "war on terror" catch phrase that the Bush-Cheney crowd had coined. After all, earlier in the day, when Obama was signing executive orders banning torture and setting a deadline for shutting Gitmo, the new president had not used that three-word term. This question got one of the shortest replies of the briefing, as Gibbs said that Obama was using language consistent with his inaugural address (in which Obama said, "our nation is at war against a far-reaching network of violence and hatred") and that he (Gibbs) was not aware of any decision on Obama's part to scuttle the WOT characterization. Later in the day, while speaking at the State Department, Obama did refer to the "war on terror," in a glancing way.

Despite Gibbs' answer and Obama's reference to the "war on terror," I wondered if the president has an aversion to the term--which would be a good thing. Terror is an abstraction. You cannot defeat an abstraction. And the WOT offers a rather expansive--and easy to abuse--definition of the problem at hand. The United States is confronted by, as Obama said, a particular (though somewhat amorphous) network of evildoers. The enemy is this group, not the notion of terror. And it's still debatable whether "war" is the most appropriate way of describing this challenge.

Gibbs' answer did not resolve the issue, nor did Obama's quick mention of the WOT on Thursday afternoon. And the next day, at Gibbs' second press briefing, Fox News correspondent Major Garrett took another swing at it. He asked,

President Bush, after 9/11, said the United States and its government was engaged in a war on terror. Is that what this administration calls it, and if not, why?

Gibbs replied:

Should the new Obama Administration dig through all the dark ugliness of the Bush-Cheney years--torture, renditions, the destruction of evidence, etc.--and start prosecuting former Bush officials, including the veep? I appeared on MSNBC's Hardball with hawk-of-all-hawks Frank Gaffney Jr. to discuss the matter.

By the way, if you haven't seen Stephen Hayes piece in which Cheney grouses about Bush not pardoning Scooter Libby, check it out. The article is a hoot. I encourage Hayes, Cheney's sympathetic chronicler-in-chief, to fuel more feuding between this out-of-power couple.

I attended Robert Gibbs' first (and very crowded) White House briefing as press secretary and asked whether President Obama--when he earlier signed an executive order banning torture--had not used the phrase "war on terror" purposefully. (Instead, the new president had referred to the "ongoing struggle" against violence and terrorism.) To find out what Gibbs said, click here.

Many of the queries at the briefing were about that executive orders and another one setting a one-year deadline for closing Gitmo. Gibbs made no news explaining and defending those orders. There were several questions about Wall Street Bailout II, and Gibbs patiently repeated the Obama claim--which seems credible--that he will handle and disburse the bailout funds in a more effective and more transparent manner than the Bush crowd did last year.

There was only one question on Iraq, and nothing on Afghanistan. (Ann Compton of ABC News asked if the military commanders with whom Obama spoke the day before had expressed any "reservations or concerns" about his plan to pull out combat troops within 16 months. Gibbs essentially--and unsurprisingly--said no.) The most buzzy topic was the second swearing-in conducted at the White House the previous night. The press corps dwelled on that a bit much. And then every journo in the room started scribbling furiously when Gibbs disclosed that Obama will keep his BlackBerry, while only using it for limited communications with a limited n umber of senior--make that, very senior--aides. Thinking of those possible millions of missing Bush White House emails, I threw in a follow-up: will Obama's BlackBerry messages be preserved and archived in accordance with the laws governing presidential records. Yup, Gibbs said.

One of the more intriguing questions of the sessions concerned a standard White House procedure: background briefings. This happens when administration officials talk to a group of reporters about a particular issue, and the reporters can use the information provided, but only by citing unnamed White House aides. They cannot ID these officials. The practice is useful for reporters. They get more information. And it's often no big secret in Washington who the unnamed officials are, given that a bunch of journalists know. But in a White House led by a man who has pledged greater transparency, should background briefings be continued? One reporter asked:

Day One was a pretty good day.

First off, President Barack Obama kept the nation safe from terrorist attack. And he also started un-Bushing the nation. He did the latter by issuing a series of executive orders and memos. One mandated that the military commissions under way at Guantanamo Bay be halted for 120 days. Another reshaped government policy so that it will be harder for ex-President George W. Bush (and other former residents of 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue) to block the release of their administration's records.

A third dealt with an issue near and dear to my heart: the Freedom of Information Act. I've been using this good-government law for years to pry information out of the federal government, and over the past two decades it has become emasculated. Some agencies have taken up to almost ten years to respond to FOIA requests I've submitted. (Foggy Bottom, I'm talking about you!) That can make FOIA useless--and damn irritating--for journalists and authors. As a symbol of open government, FOIA has become a tattered, worn-out flag.

Today, Obama tried to restore some of its lost luster. In a memo he sent to the heads of federal agencies and executive departments, he declared:

My take on President Obama's first speech, first posted at MotherJones.com....

With over a million exhilarated Americans filling the space between the civic shrines of the Capitol and the Washington Monument on the National Mall, President Barack Obama, in the first American inaugural address delivered by a black man, acknowledged the enthusiasm and hope he and his victory have inspired, but his speech was not overly celebratory. Instead, he attempted to guide the nation into what promises, due to circumstances heretofore beyond his control, to be a somber time and a trying presidency.

Underneath clear skies on a crisp, slightly-colder-than-usual day, the 44th president began, "I stand here today humbled by the task before us." He noted that he had just become one of the few presidents who takes office "amidst gathering clouds and raging storms." He outlined the obvious problems his administration faces: war, a weak economy (partly due to the "greed and irresponsibility" of "some"), job losses, businesses closed, homes lost, a broken health care system, and failing schools.

Vowing to meet these daunting challenges, the new president offered not policy details but, yes, hope. He praised the unsung workers (including slaves) of America's past, "obscure in their labor," who built this country. But, he added, the current challenges "will not be met easily or in a short span of time." He maintained that Americans "must pick ourselves up, dust ourselves off, and begin again the work of remaking America." And that renewal, he said, would demand "bold and swift" action, including the building of roads and bridges, electric grids and digital lines. It also would entail reforming health care, developing alternative energy, and revitalizing schools. He acknowledged this is a big job.

Obama portrayed his response to the moment at hand as ideology-free: "What the cynics fail to understand is that the ground has shifted beneath them--that the stale political arguments that have consumed us for so long no longer apply. The question we ask today is not whether our government is too big or too small, but whether it works--whether it helps families find jobs at a decent wage, care they can afford, a retirement that is dignified." Obama can try to depict his agenda as post-ideological, but these words do convey the opposite sentiment of Ronald Reagan's first inaugural address: "Government is not the solution to our problem; government is the problem." And Obama did challenge another fundamental precept of conservatism when he noted that the free market cannot always be trusted: "without a watchful eye, the market can spin out of control." This was a speech of progressive notions--without explicitly championing them.

Will it never end?

I'm referring to the seemingly endless stream of parties, receptions, and events that have been transpiring in Washington since last week to mark the inauguration of Barack Obama. For those of you not in Washington, the past few days have been like a combo of Mardi Gras, Times Square (on New Year's Eve), and post-World Series victory partying. And it's both low-end and high-end. Town cars dart about the city. (Cabbies have asked to be hired out a $700 a day.) The politerati chatter about which hotspot is the hottest. Maureen Dowd's Sunday night bash was a maxed-out mash-up of Hollywood and Washington: David Geffen, Chris Matthews, Ron Howard, Howard Kurtz, Larry David, Tom Brokaw, Tom Hanks, Brian Williams, George Lucas, Andrew Sullivan. Wait--scratch Hanks. He couldn't get in the door. The house was so packed it became physically impossible to enter.

Gwen Ifill's book party. (Great crab cakes!). Al Gore's environmental ball (a hot ticket). Jamie Foxx at Norman Lear's Declare Yourself party. Oprah at The Root's ball. (What did she wear? I missed her by minutes.) And out on the streets of DC, there are people strolling about, looking happy--damn happy. On Saturday, folks were just hanging on the Mall, looking to catch the spirit. On Sunday, hundreds of thousands hoofed it to the Lincoln Memorial to see Bruce Springsteen, Beyoncé, U2 and others celebrate America and--let's face it--Barack Obama.

It's all been a blast--even if exhausting. The Lincoln Memorial show had its poignant and signficant moments.

But what's a bit odd is that all this excitement and celebrating is occurring at a time of...well, desperation. The economy is in the tank, and two wars are ongoing. I'm not suggesting that people should be moping at home in the dark. Obama's election is historic and we can hope (!) it will be consequential in the best sense. Yet come Wednesday, the parties will matter little. And the new president--and the entire nation--will be faced with one long horizontal to-do list. Despite the glitz of recent days, Obama's fundamental job is to clean up one helluva mess left behind by...oh, what's-his-name?

George W. Bush gave his final speech to the nation on Thursday night. I skipped it to see my daughter, who has known no other president, perform with her school chorus. But when I later sat before my television to see how the speech was being punditized on the cable news shows, I was surprised. The water-landing of a US Airways flight in New York City dominated the coverage. There was little chatter--almost nothing--about Bush's farewell.

After watching the speech on the White House website, I understood why. It was flat and short. Bush said little of interest. He dwelled mostly on 9/11 and the so-called war on terror, once again (and for the last official time) characterizing the invasion of Iraq as part of his effort to take "the fight to the terrorists." He suggested that although the Iraq war was the subject of "legitimate debate," there "can be little debate about the results. America has gone more than seven years without another terrorist attack on our soil."

Was the nation's safety ensured because Bush invaded Iraq and did not finish the fight in Afghanistan? No doubt, he and his ever-dwindling band of defenders will continue to insist that it is so--just as a rooster might insist there is a connection between his crowing and the rising of the sun. And Bush defended himself for having been "willing to make the tough decisions"--as if making hard choices is the same as making wise ones.

Barack Obama, as I've noted before, will be the source of much emotional back and forth for progressives in the days, weeks, months and years ahead. He taps Rick Warren to deliver an invocation at his inauguration. Ugh. Then he adds Gene Robinson, a gay Episcopal bishop, to the lineup. Yay. He dines with conservative and neocon columnists who have helped run the country off the rails. Boo. Then he has breakfast with Rachel Maddow and E.J. Dionne. Hooray. His press secretary, Robert Gibbs, says Obama will end "don't ask, don't tell" and allow gays to serve openly in the military. Wow. Then Gibb says that changing the policy must wait. Well, okay.

One natural response is: this is life. But it does seem that Obama will keep all of us on our toes.

Black and white may not come so easy in the Obama era. Yesterday, I noted that Eric Holder, Obama's choice for attorney general, had some heavy baggage from his days as a corporate lawyer. And I happen to think that his role in the Marc Rich pardon scandal should practically disqualify him from further government service.

But it was hard not to cheer when Holder, at his confirmation hearing on Thursday morning, gave a clear statement: "Waterboarding is torture." And he noted that it was illegal. This is a real and profound switch. The last two attorney generals could not make this statement. And George Bush and Dick Cheney have repeatedly insisted that the U.S. has not tortured anyone--even though waterboarding has been used by the CIA. (In a front-page interview with Bob Woodward published on Wednesday, Susan Crawford, the top Bush administration in charge of bringing Gitmo detainees to trial, said that in the case of one detainee the U.S. has committed torture: "We tortured [Mohammed al-]Qahtani.")

I first posted this at motherjones.com. Tried to be nuanced. But did I end up just sounding naive? Feel free to tell me.

Eric Holder Jr., by all accounts, is a decent, smart, caring, competent fellow. President-elect Barack Obama's pick to be attorney general had a brilliant career in public service: he graduated from Columbia University law school, worked at the NAACP Legal Defense Fund, was a trial attorney at the Justice Department, a Superior Court judge in Washington, DC, a US attorney, and, then deputy attorney general. He has served on various nonprofit boards: George Washington University, the American Constitution Society, Morehouse School of Medicine, Save the Children Foundation, the District of Columbia's Police Foundation, and the Innocence Project. He's been a member of Concerned Black Men for over 25 years. He also, in a way, represents what's wrong with Washington.

That's not because of Holder's infamous role in the Marc Rich pardon. That episode--which Holder will certainly be asked about during confirmation hearings, which are scheduled to begin Thursday--was a case of Washington pay-to-play. There's little doubt that Rich, a fugitive financier indicted for tax evasion, racketeering, and trading with the enemy (Iran), was able to win that last-minute pardon from President Clinton (with Holder, as deputy attorney general, leaning slightly in its favor) because he had hired a former Clinton White House counsel to argue his case and because Rich's ex-wife had pledged money to Clinton causes.

Holder's role in the Rich pardon may not have been instrumental, but it was a mistake--a terrible way to cap off decades of public service. But he is a poster child for something perhaps more pernicious and extensive in the nation's capital: selling out. Months after the Clinton administration ended, Holder went to work for the influential law firm and lobbying shop of Covington and Burling. (He also joined the boards of Eastman Kodak and MCI.)

Holder was doing what so many routinely do in Washington: cashing in. He took years of experience he had gathered as a public servant and rented it to corporations accused of serious wrongdoing. He smoothly went from doing good to doing well. In 2008, according to his confirmation questionnaire, he made $2.1 million at Covington and Burling. And he expects in 2009 to bring in over $2.5 million, including his separation payment.

There's a lot going on these days: a presidential transition, numerous confirmation hearings, various appointment announcements, and assorted megabucks bailouts--not to mention a couple of wars. But my favorite item of the day came from the publicity office of the American Enterprise Institute. AEI sent out an email announcing an event next week:

Is Deregulation a Cause of the Financial Crisis?

During the recent campaign season, the Democrats blamed the financial crisis on "Republican deregulation," in particular the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act of 1999 (GLBA) and the Commodity Futures Modernization Act of 2000 (CFMA). The GLBA repealed the provisions of the Glass-Steagall Act of 1933 that prevented affiliations between commercial and investment banks, and the CFMA, among other things, exempted credit default swaps and other derivatives from regulation by the Commodity Futures Trading Commission. Although both acts were backed by the Clinton administration, Senator Phil Gramm (R-Texas)--then the chairman of the Senate Banking Committee--was the key congressional sponsor of the legislation. Is it plausible to connect the GLBA and the CFMA with the current financial crisis?

And guess who is going to address this question? Yep, Phil Gramm.

I think I can safely say that a piece I wrote last year put into political play the notion that Gramm, who had been an adviser to McCain, helped grease the way to the subprime meltdown by using a backroom maneuver in late 2000 to pass the Commodity Futures Modernization Act, which deregulated swaps, a complex financial instrument used to support various sorts of financial deals. And there's not much question that the rapid growth of the nontransparent swap market contributed to the subprime debacle.

These days, Gramm is a well-paid executive at Swiss banking giant UBS, which has blamed its own financial troubles on swaps.

When I was working on that article last spring, I contacted Gramm. But he declined to talk--and he went on to become something of a lightning rod for McCain in the summer when he dismissed Americans' concerned with the economy as "whiners." Now that the campaign dust has settled, he's ready to discuss all this. I'll make a bold prediction and say that his presentation is going to go something like this: it wasn't me.

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AP reported on Monday that President-elect Barack Obama, after moving into the White House next week, will issue an executive order to begin the process that would lead to the closing of the U.S. military prison at Guantanamo Bay. With that in the news, I was asked to appear on Hardball to debate conservative talk-show host Michael Smerconish, who supports the use of waterboarding. Here's the clip:

At least Smerconish, a lawyer, agreed with one basic point: the US government, despite what the Bush-Cheney administration has contended, has no right to hold anyone--not even enemy combatants--indefinitely. Perhaps Obama is right: conservatives and liberals--that is, those of us who don't take our constitutional advice from Dick Cheney's office--can find some common ground.

George W. Bush the wise and somber presidential veteran.

Spare me. But as Bush prepares to leave office, he's trying to strike that sort of tone. I suppose it's easier to pontificate about the office of the presidency than to say, "Boy, did I screw up, I'm outta here." So at a press conference on Monday morning--probably his final as president--Bush discussed the burdens of presidential leadership and noted there will come a moment next Tuesday when Barack Obama, after taking the oath of office and watching the parade, settles into the Oval Office and says to himself, "Oh, my." (Maybe he will add, "Is this my beautiful house?")

But being president is really not that bad, Bush said. According to Fox News, he remarked: "Disappointments will be clearly a minority irritant." (Was that a Freudian slip? Or just another Bushism? According to the official transcript of the press conference, Bush actually said, "minor irritant.")

But the most surprising (I suppose) element of his non-mea-culpa is his insistence that he is unpopular because he did the right thing. For instance, he said that it would have been wrong for him to back the Kyoto global warming treaty just to be popular. Of course. But that doesn't mean trashing it was the correct thing to do. Bush seems to believe that popular disgust with some of his actions is a signal that he made the hard and right choice. See Iraq.

On Fox News Sunday, Bush had this telling exchange with Brit Hume:

With one hand, he giveth, with the other....

By tapping Leon Panetta to be CIA chief, Barack Obama sent a clear signal: no to torture. A year ago, Panetta wrote an article declaring, "We cannot and we must not use torture under any circumstances." And he included waterboarding--which the CIA has used---as torture. In fact, Obama's reported first choice for the CIA job, John Brennan, a career CIA official, had had his chances scuttled after bloggers and others griped that he had been soft, if not supportive, when it came to torture and CIA renditions. A New Yorker piece by Jane Mayer identified him as a "supporter" of so-called enhanced interrogation methods. And in a 2006 PBS interview, Brennan said, "we do have to take off the gloves in some areas" but without going so far as to "forever tarnish the image of the United States abroad." He added that the "dark side has its limits."

Well, Brennan didn't get the top post at Langley. But Obama has selected him to be his chief counterterrorism adviser in the White House. The job requires no Senate confirmation. So Brennan will not be inconvenienced by questions regarding any past involvement with CIA renditions and waterboarding. (Brennan has reportedly told Obama he had no direct role in CIA's abusive interrogation policies and even internally expressed reservations.)

Is this another sign of the Big O's pragmatism? Brennan, no doubt, knows plenty on the subject of counterterrorism. And he has called for breaking with the Bush policy on Iran and the Middle East. For instance, he has criticized Bush and his aides for unduly bashing Iran. But tapping him does partially negate the message conveyed by the Panetta pick.

I think people are going to have to get used to this sort of Obama give-and-take. Critics certainly don't have to accept it. But they should expect more of these sorts of episodes. I assume there will be plenty of other instances when Obama will exasperate and hearten his supporters simultaneously. (And don't forget about Rick Warren.) In this particular case, Obama supporters can only hope that Brennan will now use whatever experience he collected on "the dark side" for the forces of good.

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Neocon former Bush speechwriter David Frum (who helped coin the "Axis of Evil" phrase) wonders "why Democrats recoil from Gaza." But have no fear, he has the answers. Dems just aren't fans of military action, he says, and they are suckers for negotiations. But, worse, according to Frum, "Democratic attitudes are poisoned by the influences of an anti-Zionist hard left, a vociferous faction whose ideology can bleed into outright anti-Semitism."

Yes, the anti-Semitism card. This is the main thrust of his article.

No doubt, there are people who don't fancy Israel's attacks on Gaza due to their own anti-Semitism or anti-Zionism. But Frum is engaged in the time-honored tradition of rigging the debate (j'accuse!) on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Might the recoiling he speak of--and I've not seen many Democratic officials (certainly not President-elect Barack Obama) engage in such recoiling--be due to a legitimate concern about the proportionality of the military action, the wisdom of this attack, or the humanitarian toll of the operation?

Before proceeding, let me state that the Gaza rocket attacks are human rights crimes, and Israel has the right to defend itself. But that does not mean that in retaliation for about a dozen deaths caused by the rockets from 2004 on, the Israeli Defense Force ought to blow up schools and hospitals in Gaza and kill scores of civilians. This is how Physicians for Human Rights-Israel described Monday's shelling of a UN school:

The front page of The Washington Post screams, "Obama Is Under Fire Over Panetta Selection." The article notes that "current and former intelligence officials expressed sharp resentment over Obama's choice of Leon E. Panetta as CIA director." CQPolitics.com blogger and national security journalist Jeff Stein, quoting a former CIA operations veteran, reports that the rank-and-file reaction to Panetta at the CIA has been "overwhelmingly negative." Stein notes that many CIA field people aren't keen on bringing an intelligence establishment outsider into the CIA and would rather have someone who knows the nitty-gritty of spy work running the place--though Stein does report that "a number of former top CIA officials" have told him that Panetta could be a good choice, given that he can be expected to have the standing within the Obama administration to bring effective leadership to the agency.

I asked a former top CIA official who had served not too long ago to share his/her view of the Panetta pick. S/he would only do so if not identified. I know it's often unsatisfying to read a long quote from an unnamed source. But his/her perspective is interesting enough to merit presenting the full response. Let me add that this person is savvy in both the ways of Langley and Washington:

I was expecting to be surprised...and I was. It seems to me to be a reasonably good one pick given the cards they had dealt themselves. The Obama transition folks massively mishandled the [onetime contender for CIA chief] John Brennan situation. When they caved to a little outside pressure [which resulted from Brennan's previous association with the CIA's so-called enhanced interrogation procedures] and forced him to remove himself from consideration -- they ended up ruling out a whole class of potential candidates. (i.e. anyone who had served in a position of any significance in intelligence in the past 8 years). So then what could they do?

Yesterday, I posted a piece noting that Leon Panetta, Barack Obama's choice as CIA director, could draw opposition from CIA insiders and vets because he has been a fierce foe of waterboarding (a torture tactic used by the CIA), has advocated greater congressional oversight of CIA covert operations, and in the 1990s, as President Clinton's budget chief, pushed for cuts in the CIA's budget. Yet the first important blasts came from Democrats. Both Senator Dianne Feinstein, the incoming chair of the Senate intelligence committee, and Senator Jay Rockefeller, the outgoing chair of the committee, huffed that Panetta was no intelligence professional.

Their knee-jerk response--which seemed to contain a resentful dose of no-one-in-the-Obama-camp-asked-me-about-this--could give cover to those who object to Panetta on policy grounds and to CIA people who don't want an outsider taking control of a troubled agency that screwed the pooch on 9/11 and Iraq WMDs. Remember Curveball?

My CQ blogger colleague Jeff Stein raises a good point:

Quick--name the current (and outgoing) secretary of commerce.

Of course, you can't. It's Carlos Gutierrez. His official bio says he's "a core member of President Bush's economic team." Well, how "core" has he been during the past few months, as the U.S. economy has melted down? I don't recall seeing him much on the tube, explaining policies and proposals that would revive the economy. That bio boasts that he has traveled the world to promote US exports--and also notes that as co-chair of the Commission for Assistance to a Free Cuba, he has been actively working on US-Cuba policy. Hooray for that.

Gutierrez is a reminder that Commerce has been the backwater of the Cabinet. Can you point to a single commerce secretary of distinction in recent years? (Clinton's appointment, Ron Brown, got into trouble for taking big Democratic funders on his trade missions.) But the department does do a lot of important stuff: trade, the census, patents, trademarks, telecommunications policy. It includes the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, which is instrumental for developing science and policy relating to global warming. Wouldn't it be swell if it had a top-tier secretary?