Obama’s Team Is Lacking Most of Its Top Players.
"Of more than 500 senior policymaking positions requiring Senate confirmation, just 43 percent have been filled — a reflection of a White House that grew more cautious after several nominations blew up last spring, a Senate that is intensively investigating nominees and a legislative agenda that has consumed both.
While career employees or holdovers fill many posts on a temporary basis, Mr. Obama does not have his own people enacting programs central to his mission. He is trying to fix the financial markets but does not have an assistant treasury secretary for financial markets. He is spending more money on transportation than anyone since Dwight D. Eisenhower but does not have his own inspector general watching how the dollars are used. He is fighting two wars but does not have an Army secretary.
He sent Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton to Africa to talk about international development but does not have anyone running the Agency for International Development. He has invited major powers to a summit on nuclear nonproliferation but does not have an assistant secretary of state for nonproliferation.
“If you’re running G.M. without half your senior executives in place, are you worried? I’d say your stockholders would be going nuts,” said Terry Sullivan, a professor at the University of North Carolina and executive director of the White House Transition Project, a scholarly program that tracks appointments. “The notion of the American will — it’s not being thwarted, but it’s slow to come to fruition.”
Culture of corruption: Daschle edition.
"Chapter 1 of Culture of Corruption provides a full sketch of Daschle’s tax-cheating, influence-peddling ways — and exposes Barack Obama’s refusal to throw his wheeler-dealer Beltway buddy off the bus. Limousine liberal Daschle’s tax evasions were the least of his problems. Tom Daschle is the personification of all that Obama professed to detest during his campaign of Hope and Change— – a consummate Beltway insider who parlayed his public service (where he earned a $158,000 yearly salary) into a $5.2 million personal fortune as one of Washington’s biggest influence peddlers along with his lobbyist wife."
A "profanity-laced screaming match" at the White House.
"According to intelligence officials, Panetta erupted in a tirade last month during a meeting with a senior White House staff member. Panetta was reportedly upset over plans by Attorney General Eric Holder to open a criminal investigation of allegations that CIA officers broke the law in carrying out certain interrogation techniques that President Obama has termed "torture."
A CIA spokesman quoted Panetta as saying "it is absolutely untrue" that he has any plans to leave the CIA. As to the reported White House tirade, the spokesman said Panetta is known to use "salty language." CIA spokesman George Little said the report was "wrong, inaccurate, bogus and false."
It's entirely plausible that the only purpose of your life
is to serve as a warning for others.