So much for the Greatest Transition in World History

Michelle Malkin Blog ^ | August 24, 2009 | Michelle Malkin

[Schnucki]

A New York Times headline yesterday read: “Obama’s Team Is Lacking Most of Its Top Players.”

Yes, so much for the Greatest Transition in World History (a point expounded on in the introduction to Culture of Corruption, where I note that for all the hype about Obama’s brilliant, efficient, amazingly genius transition team, Obama failed to beat the pace of the Reagan White House, which had 73 officials confirmed by Day 100 compared to Obama’s 65 — and which avoided the bungles and baggage that Obama’s botched nominees brought with them.)

The bottom line so far, the NYT now reports:

As President Obama tries to turn around a summer of setbacks, he finds himself still without most of his own team. Seven months into his presidency, fewer than half of his top appointees are in place advancing his agenda.

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…

…Measuring the progress in appointments depends on what positions are counted and who is doing the counting. The White House Transition Project counts 543 policymaking jobs requiring Senate confirmation in four top executive ranks. As of last week, Mr. Obama had announced his selections for 319 of those positions, and the Senate had confirmed 236, or 43 percent of the top echelon of government. Other scholars have slightly different but similar tallies.

[lonster]

it’s dubya and cheney’s fault!!

[Venturer]

Obama doesnt care about getting people confirmed. He just appoints another Czar.

Why should he worry about getting people confirmed when he is making their jobs worthless with Czars.?

[a fool in paradise]

Al Gore stalled Bush’s attempts at transition. Recall their outrage when he was trying to piece together who would be in his cabinet while the legal challenges were making their ways through the courts? We didn’t have an answer for MONTHS.

Obama established the office of the president-elect, something no other president has done in history. He even established a transitionary website for his administration.

Wonder how he’ll feel when the next president attempts to likewise. Presuming he doesn’t do as Chavez and declare himself president for life.

[GreyFriar]

When will he appoint a dean of all the czars, to watch over them?

Then we’ll have a czar dean