Grading the Obama Team

Don Surber takes a look at the team Barack Obama has put together for his cabinet:

Let us review that cabinet that President Obama built.

In order of importance, with my grade on the choice.

Vice president — Sen. Joe Biden. Bob Uecker, except he does not realize it. Wanted to divide Iraq into 3 parts. Are the hairplugs on too tight? F.

Chief of staff — Rahm Emanuel. A knee-capper, which I like. You want an enforcer in the White House so that the president may preside. But the taint of the Blagojevich scandal may touch him. What am I saying? Patrick Fitzgerald is a bungler who wants to keep his job. There will be other scandals. B.

Defense — Secretary Robert Gates has done a good job and I hope he is able to rebuild the military and make it less dependent on reservists and National Guardsmen. I am not knocking the reserves or the National Guard. But we lean on them way too much. A.

State — Sen. Hillary Clinton may just be man enough for the job. I trust she learned from her husband’s mistakes. Better to be feared than loved. She knows it. Bill didn’t. B.

Attorney general — Eric Holder is a disastrous pick. He was the Clintonian henchman whose work included the deportation of Elian Gonzalez, the pardon of Marc Rich and the pardon of 16 Puerto Rican terrorists. F.

National security adviser — Retired Marine commandant Gen. James Jones. ’Nuff said. A.

Homeland security — Gov. Janet Napolitano. Supports amnesty for illegal aliens. And there is no Sarah Palin to save her. D.

Commerce — Gov. Bill Richardson was so sloppy in running the Department of Energy (he screwed up the Los Alamos spy case) that Democratic Sen. Robert C. Byrd vowed in June 2000 to never support the guy again. Obama picked him anyway. That blew up in Obama’s face when a pay-to-play scheme surfaced in New Mexico and the governor was forced to step aside. F.

Transportation — Republican Roy LaHood was an earmarxist while in Congress. This is like giving the keys to the liquor cabinet to the town drunk. So much for Obama’s vow to cleanse the budget of earmarks. D.

CIA — Leon Panetta has no intelligence experience. I am not sure if that is a good thing or a bad thing. Considering the CIA sent Democrat Joe Wilson to Nigeria to undermine President Bush’s plans in Iraq, I am not really inspired by the complaints of the careerists in the agency. Panetta does seem to have some management experience. C.

Labor — Hilda Solis. Nice story of a daughter of immigrants making it to Congress. A union lackey who swoons about “environmental justice.” I have no idea what that means. Maybe it means polar bears stop eating those delicious baby harp seals. C.

Energy — Steve Chu. Nobel laureate. Into alternative energy. Fine, but what about energy independence? Eh, maybe he will inject actual science into the global warming debate. A.

Energy czar — Carol Browner. She shredded her computer files on her last day as EPA administrators so she is about as trustworthy as a snake. No energy experience, other than stopping the refining of oil and the creation of electricity. I’m curious as to why we have an energy secretary and an energy czar. The redundancy shows indecision on Obama’s part. Hack. D.

EPA — Lisa Jackson.has a lot of EPA. 20 years as an EPA. B.

Agriculture — Tom Vilsack. Don’t look for any farm subsidy reform. But he has gubernatorial experience. A.

Interior — Sen. Ken Salazar. We sort of want to protect our national parks. As long as he allows people to carry sidearms in Yosemite, he’ll be OK. A.

Education — Arne Duncan. As “CEO” of Chicago’s public schools he oversaw a politically correct failure that spent $67,000 for 30 cappuccino machines in a no-bid contract. But, hey, he plays basketball and he’s from Chicago, right? If only Bill Ayers could dribble. D.

The rest either haven’t been appointed or don’t really matter to me.

Cabinet overall grade: A gentleman’s C. He has spotty judgment, and the choices for attorney general and vice president are real troubling. For a man whose selling card is his perfect judgment, he sure pulls more than his share of boners.

That seems about right. For all the hope and change it seems an inauspicious start.