Obama’s Cabinet: Evaporating Appeal

It was a furious start. In the first days of his presidency Barack Obama seemed to succeed everywhere. The new man in the White House was cruising along. He pushed the closure of Guantanamo forward, started a dialogue with the Arabic world and led a turn-around in environmental polices. Allies and enemies of the USA held their breath, stunned. Even the old anti-American Fidel Castro managed to praise Obama.

But already in the second week the magic has dwindled. “I think I screwed up,” admitted Obama sheepishly. Before that two of his personnel choices blew up in his face.

Political veteran Tom Daschle, Obama’s candidate for the position of health secretary, pulled himself back just as side-stepper Nancy Killefer, who should have been the highest budget controller in the new administration. Already the word ‘cabinet crisis’ is making its rounds in Washington. Now, of all times.

The economic stimulus package with which Obama will heave the economy out of the abyss has still not passed. In the Senate resistance is forming. Not only have the oppositional Republicans had doubts, but conservative Democrats as well. The personnel disputes are overshadowing the search for a compromise.

Obama has not been dealt a helpful hand as he put together his administration. First his designated secretary of commerce, Bill Richardson, had to go, then Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner was put under pressure due to personal tax problems, and now Daschle and Killefer are affected.

Certain stupidities have cost the candidates their administrative posts. Obama is partially to blame. Especially in the case of Daschle, he is charged with not reacting fast enough. Still on Monday he defended his secretary-to-be. At the same time it has long since been known that Daschle has raked in fees from lobbyists. Obviously the strict ethical guidelines, which Obama wholeheartedly endorsed after his election, do not apply for all who sit on his Cabinet.

This is called a double standard. Even by Geithner, the allegedly vital financial specialist that the administration pushed through Congress despite the fact that he is also a tax evader, has the president’s own noble principles injured.

Obama’s occasionally more talkative Vice President Joe Biden said in the election campaign that to pay taxes is patriotic. Now the new masters in Washington are certainly no traitors to America, as right-wing agitators suggest. But there are also not paragons and symbols for the awakening of a new America.

Obama had promised nothing less.