Wonkette
Money and numbers dorks are all excited this morning, speculating about who Barack Obama might select for the most thankless job in America. Will it be Larry Summers, again? Your editor would kind of like to see the very competent FDIC chairman and level-headed Kansan Sheila Bair get the post, but that’s mostly because Bair was so great on Charlie Rose that one time and Warren Buffett likes her. [Bloomberg]
As long as her first reaction to a crisis is not to give hundreds of billions of dollars to her friends with no preconditions. Not that anybody would do such a dumbass obviously cronyistic self-serving move. Ever.
Wait… didn’t Obama promise to appoint Raul Castro to the position? Isn’t that what I heard on Laura Ingrahm’s show on Fox?
Paul Krugman, because he is my ultimate platonic man crush.
Condeleeza Rice was just on the TV.
She looked genuinely happy. Almost near tears, but in a good way.
She spoke about how far African Americans have come and her pride seemed so genuine. It’s actually the nicest I’ve ever seen her.
Who needs a Treasury secretary? I thought we were just going to give the money to welfare moms?
I like that eBay CEO, Meg Whitman, yeah, she’s done a good job hasn’t she HENNGHHH?
If Buffet digs, then everyone should dig. I mean, dude’s not wrong…usually.
Hmmm, I’d like to see Warren Buffett get it, but he’d be crazy to take that job.
For the humor potential, how about Bill Jefferson, the should have been slightly disgraced Congressman from Louisiana? He knows a bit about cash.
Wanted: US America Sec of the Treasury
Qualifications: Must be good with money and math and must like working in a fiscal fixer upper.
No Libertarians or Uncle Milty Friedman acolytes apply.
Gorillionaire:
I think there’s a Federal Reserve Chairmanship set aside for Krugman. If he can get over his girl Hillary’s failure to win the nomination.
Serolf Divad: …no, no, no, Raul Castro was suppose to head the Labor Department. Hugo Chavez will be Treasury Secretary.
I hope its Donald Trump, because then his good-lloking wife can be seen wearing nice chlothes to all the parties.
NoWireHangers: …and Burka adorned abortionists.
McDuck 2012!
Serolf Divad:
No, I heard it was going to be the reanimated corpse of Lenin. “Must Krush Kaptialism!”
mattbolt:
I propose she be appointed Secretary of PEZ dispenser inspection.
Whoever owns the nation’s biggest puppy mill…
Sara is in the tank for a SoTILF.
AngryBlakGuy:
Hugo Chavez should head the Dept of Energy
hockeymom: That’s “teevee” in these parts, young lady. And nothing can humanize Condi any more. She and Powell sold their souls and integrity to Chimpy. Neither one can be America’s Official Black Spokesperson again.
Plus Condi’s probably angling for a job in the new admin.
I think Pac Man Jones would be a good choice. He could end the recession by making it rain.
BTW… Stellar coverage last night Wonkette. Loves to you all. xx
Sheila Bair is the only person in this administration I have
ever met. I had dinner with her a few years ago when she was
living in Amherst, MA. She is the only person to receive praise
from both sides of the aisle. She is smart (was way out ahead
in warning about The Big Mess to Come, and in developing
solutions), funny, effective–and, most of all, decent.
She is what republicans used to be before their party got hijacked by
theocrats and main-chance-seekers like 41, atwater, rove, and that lot.
She would be a great choice.
V572625694:
“Plus Condi’s probably angling for a job in the new admin.”
Chances are slim to none and slim just left town.
A broad running the monies??!!
V572625694: It’s hard not to agree with that sentiment, yet I was fairly well impressed by Powell’s “Meet the Press” performance. He’s been de-souled, agreed, but he did make a compelling presentation on behalf of Obama and against anti-muslim bigotry. My opinion of the man was improved a touch.
Joe the Plumber…. I mena how can someone making less than 40K a year have grandios plans to buy a business? And how can that guy on that salary ‘afford’ to travel to pimp up McCain??? Hell, he was even able to have someone do a radio telethon to pay his back taxes! Shit, we could wipe out the defecit in a few days!!!
GreatLakesNation:
I’d hate to be behind the U.S. writing a checking in the checkout lane.
hockeymom: If Condi wasn’t teh gay, she’d probably have a schoolgirl crush on Barry. But, I heard that she was friends with the little girls killed in the AL church bombing, so I’m sure she was touched (emotionally–mentally is a whole other issue).
Panderfinder: Wouldn’t it be great if the Republican Party could now revert to its roots as the pro-choice party of Lincoln, reasonable advocate of conservatism in its root sense (conservation, avoidance of foreign military adventures) and fiscal responsibility? ‘Cause the fundies and wingnuts, after eight years in charge and making a mess of everything they touch, have just had their asses handed to them.
Yes, Larry Summers! Then he can finally speak truth to power and tell us that our financial woes are the result of all the irrational, unstable womens spending their munies on the credit cards and the eBay. Because women can’t do math.
Sure Orman please, if only to further piss off the wingnuts.
Bible Spice is yakking on MSNBC right now–milking her 15 minutes of excruciating infamy.
Gorillionaire: I’m with you on this, minus the man crush. Krugman actually knows this shit cold and I don’t see any other Nobel laureates on the streets of Washington holding “Unemployed, Please Help” signs
Terry:
Chances are slim to none and slim just left town.
Agreed. I wouldn’t mind it if Obama had a few “realists” among his advisers, but anyone who served in the Bush administration is damaged goods. It’s a shame that part of Bush’s legacy may well be to have torpedoed the political careers of two of America’s most impressive African-American diplomats (Condi & Powell).
PopeyesPipe: That’s what’s so frustrating about Powell: he’s intelligent, well-spoken, unbelievably accomplished, non-philandering, rational, and otherwise in possession of every virtue necessary to identify and reject the nonsense of the Bushies. But he’s also ambitious, or was, and that finished him.
Of course he can also make all the money he’ll ever need by giving a speech now and then, so it’s not necessary to feel sorry for him personally.
Perhaps Obama could appoint someone who spends a little less time during their day worrying about “The End Times.”
Just say no to Krugman…
My money is on Tim Geithner
If he picks Sheila, I hope she walks around in a towel only ’cause I just read that Sarah did that and I found it HI-LARIOUS!
What about Buffett?
Truculent: I agree. Either Krugman or Stiglitz.
How about Heloise? I am sure we can re-use-Saran-Wrap our way out of this financial mess, right?
SelfDeprecatingFed: You win.
Brian Moore
Pointless Speculation Time:
State: Bill Richardson
Defense: Wes Clark
Treasury: Krugman or that dude from the Calculated Risk blog
Justice: David Iglesias (REVENGE FUCK YEAH)
VA: Chuck Hagel
Homeland Security: Fucking anybody but Chertoff.
Interior: Al Motherfucking Gore
UN Ambassador: Bill Clinton
Push for Hillary for Senate Majority Leader.
4tehlulz: I’ve been wondering if Bill Clinton will get UN Ambassador.
That would be a pretty nice FU to Bush.
And he’d probably do a good job.
4tehlulz: How badass would it be to have a cabinet so stacked that a Nobel Prize-winning Oscar recipient is shuffed into a B-role
Gorillionaire: The word is that Paul Krugman does not play well with others, especially lickspittle government types. Plus he dissed Hopey bad at the start of the campaign.
Serolf Divad:
I mourn Powell’s lost potential role, but not Condi’s. Here she was, a supposed expert in Soviet/Russian affairs and yet Putin played Bush like a violin. Condi’s greatest talent is being Bush’s “work wife”, alternating the role perhaps with Karen Hughes.
4tehlulz: Love it.
Did we read that right–you want the beautiful actress Selma Blair to be Treasury Secretary?!?!?!?
That’d be, like, awesome, man!
TED STEVENS FOR TREASURY SECRETARY!
SARAH PALIN FOR DEPUTY TREASURY SECRETARY!
Some unfathomably stupid person on Fox News last night said that Obama would be smart to use the Treasury post as an avenue for bipartisanship… by… bringing back Hank Paulson.
azw88: I know Joe the Plumber would be the guy I’d want in that job. But isn’t he supposed to become chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff? Or maybe it was Surgeon General?
Bill would make an awesome UN ambassador.
4tehlulz, I agree with some of your picks but would suggest Gore for EPA, except that he’d kind of have to be crazy to take it. EPA regulates emissions.
I was thinking Wes Clark for Defense, too, but read somewhere this morning an argument for keeping Gates. Dunno, Clark at Homeland Security? Clark would be ok at State, too.
For the VA, Max Cleland
Commerce is a funny one. The great majority of the Department is actually NOAA. It’d be nice to put someone in there who knows business but is friendly to science too.
Meanwhile the Dow Jones index is down 271 points.
Terry: Interior regulates the coal industry though, offshore drilling, and the like. Interior also is responsible for things like endangered species, etc., and as a cabinet post, would have more pull inside the administration than EPA.
I could live with Gates, but I’d rather have Wes than one of Bush Sr’s men.
4tehlulz: I would make a couple of tweaks to your list:
Leave Gates at DoD. He knew Rumsfeld was an asswipe and has done a good job getting the pee out of that swimming pool.
Homeland Security: Break it up into its former components, plus a new Department of Looking Through Your Shit At Airports. Change the national threat level from orange to Hawaiian Sunset.
Agree Hillary should be majority leader. Keep her out of the cabinet unless you want Bill too. Sack Harry Reid. Find someone who doesn’t look like a mobile pile of laundry.
In Cheney and Addington’s offices, tear the walls down to the studs. Steam clean with bleach and harsh abrasives. Send all the furniture to Yucca Mountain. Bring in an exorcist, a Native American medicine man, a Buddhist monk, a Zoroastrian, and two Eckanars to finish up the job. Then seal the offices and never use them again.
The position has been renamed “Redistributionist in Chief” and will be held by an advanced computer intelligence that hacks the bank accounts of rich people and corporations and sends checks out to the poor. It’s serial number is RM-4933J78-K988, it is the money lord now.
http://thesebastards.blogspot.com/
4tehlulz: I agree with most of your list. Although I would put Hagel in at Defense or Homeland Security.
Jon Corzine. Done.
I want Joseph Stiglitz in there somewhere.
Summers’ combative management style does not seem congruent to Obama’s, and given the activist role that Treasury will have to take, it might need someone with more banking experience instead of someone skilled in the nastiness of academic politics. How about Bill Daley, former bank president and brother of Barry’s political Chinaman? He hasn’t stuck his nose into feminism, Zionism and Summers’ other academic political forays into sensitive topics.
Richardson has the knowledge and skills to do State, but has he the energy? He ran the laziest possible campaign for the nomination and appeared mildly sedated when I saw him speak (and I was ready to be a big fan before that). The rank and file at State always have been conservatives — is Richardson good with a whip?
True up on Stiglitz.
cal: Yeah, he could really get into it too, I bet. A fellatio smorgasbord awaits him. He can tell us how chicks from other countries give head…. I’d by THAT book!
My humble musical letter to the president elect:
http://www.writinghannah.blogspot.com
love,
Hannah
Hell, Scrooge McDuck would probably be pretty good at that.
Wishlist:
Treasury: Corzine or Rubin or maybe Bloomberg
Trade Rep: Stiglitz
Attorney General: Henry Waxman or Janet Napolitano
EPA: Udall from Colorado
Education: Inez Tennenbaum or Shirley Franklin. Or, more realistically, Troy McClure.
Defense: The Saudi government, since we opened up to them from behind.