Annette Bening is Smoking Hot

Some dude over on Yglesias' joint has been wondering for a few days re: the wisdom of choosing a Commerce Secretary who once had tried to abolish the Department of Commerce. After the embarrassment of Geithner and Daschle, perhaps we are coming up to a point where we should be genuinely concerned about Obama's picks. The first two can be explained by poor vetting, but the Gregg pick seems to border almost on recklessness.

One thing Republicans love to tell us every chance they get is that they hate government: they do not trust it, and it is remarkably ineffective. We have seen hints of them being willing to throw absolute rambling wrecks into power (Bush, Palin) so they can point out "see? Government fails!!" Of course, I've said here somewhere before yes, government will fail...if you staff it full of incompetent boobs. But then, so would any business or agency. Look at the LA Clippers. Of course, the beauty of the Republican is that while he despises government, he certainly likes to bathe in whatever power, glory and money it has to offer. (mukluks doffed)

I'm a big fan of Obama's desire to have Republicans in his cabinet. But he can't be hell-bent on doing it just to do it, so much so that he hands the Department of Commerce over to a guy whose political proclivity may be to drive it into the ground, if only to show how "useless" government is. Obviously, that's a BIT of a stretch on my part, with a little paranoia. But a few more of these picks, and the Obama administration may find itself standing idly by, helpless to move and thinking "maybe if we hadn't been so generous we could actually be getting shit done," all while the Republicans have willed themselves into a brer-rabbit styled briar patch of obstinacy. Their eagerness to congratulate each other so openly on sticking together as a team to vote against the stimulus is a sign that they're less interested in working with Obama to get shit done, and more in regaining power, even if it means passing through some whack wrinkle-in-time few years of craziness to do it. A "fuck it, why not" - inspired playbook. After all, this is the party that has gone very quickly from espousing the ideas of Reagan and Baker, and asks us to look to Palin and Plumber. Which means that Obama might wanna proceed with more caution, as he is dealing with a group of people who have nothing to lose.