I agree that his appointments have been more traditional than I would have expected, but isn't that something that suggests he has listened to his opponents who say he is inexperienced by surrounding himself with competent and experienced people?
(Note: This can be extremely effective in practice, as having people who have a lot of experience in Washington, especially dealing with Congress can make getting your policies translated into actual law much, much easier. Compare President Clinton putting Hillary Clinton and some other small time official on his healthcare agenda, which went down in flames. Obama has appointed an experienced former senator, Daschle, who is extremely knowledgeable on healthcare to the Secretary of Health and Human Services. This is what you do if you want to get your policies through Congress, get someone who 1) wants the same things you do, and 2) knows how to draft legislation that can get through Congress 3) and that won't incite public outrage since it is so poorly crafted and sold to the public (the Clinton healthcare plan))
On the other hand, if Obama had appointed lesser known people to his Cabinet, people could still claim that his administration is inexperienced and is making a mess of Washington.
So Obama has the option to
1) Appoint traditional yet competent officials to his Cabinet who know the ins and outs of Washington
2) Appoint non-traditional officials who are outside the Washington mainstream.
By doing either of these he opens himself to criticism that:
1) He isn't bringing the change he promised (ironically people claim this before Obama has been in office for even a day and has yet to actually implement any policies)
2) His appointments show he is inexperienced and that his administration is too inexperienced to deal with problems in a modern world like combatting terrorism and dealing with a global economy (which on the practical side, as I already mentioned, would hamper his ability to get his policies through Congress).
So whatever Obama does, people are going to complain. That is the reality of politics, and Obama knows that, so he is taking the pragmatic route with the hope that he can control the people in his Cabinet into not undermining what he wants to get done while also allowing them to help him out with their vast amount of collective experience. Being the President is a big job, and doing it by yourself is an even bigger job.
So essentially, Obama would be open to criticism no matter what he did, so I think people should hold off until Obama starts screwing things up in office and should wait to see if he does actually bring the change he proclaimed in practice. Then, people can complain however much they want.
We had two bags of grass, seventy-five pellets of mescaline, five sheets of high-powered blotter acid, a salt shaker half full of cocaine, a whole galaxy of multi-colored uppers, downers, screamers, laughers…Also a quart of tequila, a quart of rum, a case of beer, a pint of raw ether and two dozen amyls. The only thing that really worried me was the ether. There is nothing in the world more helpless and irresponsible and depraved than a man in the depths of an ether binge. –Raoul Duke
It is hard to shed anything but crocodile tears over White House speechwriter Patrick Buchanan's tragic analysis of the Nixon debacle. "It's like Sisyphus," he said. "We rolled the rock all the way up the mountain...and it rolled right back down on us...." Neither Sisyphus nor the commander of the Light Brigade nor Pat Buchanan had the time or any real inclination to question what they were doing...a martyr, to the bitter end, to a "flawed" cause and a narrow, atavistic concept of conservative politics that has done more damage to itself and the country in less than six years than its liberal enemies could have done in two or three decades. -Hunter S. Thompson
