President Obama needs a full-blooded Commerce Secretary, not a partial one in Judd Gregg

A BUZZFLASH NEWS ANALYSIS
by Chad Rubel

The White House made a smart move, taking the Commerce Department out of the loop on the 2010 Census. The Obama people had to do something after black and Hispanic leaders expressed concern over what Judd Gregg would do as Commerce Secretary, given his past history against the census.

And let's be fair: the other racial groups should be concerned over what Gregg might have done with the census, had he remained in charge.

This gets back to the point we've been wondering all week: why the f*ck is Gregg is charge of the Commerce Department?

Yes, the president gets a large say in who gets to be in the Cabinet. But you have a situation where Democrats want to get experience in Cabinet posts, yet in defense, transportation, and now commerce, sorry, no openings.

Why would you want to hire a Commerce Secretary knowing full well you won't give that person all of the responsibilities involved in the job description? Either you trust your Commerce Secretary to perform all the responsibilities or you don't give that person the job. And if you don't trust your own Cabinet member, then maybe you hired the wrong person.

And if this is about getting the stimulus package through Congress (a bad choice even for a good cause), Gregg will abstain from voting on the bill, and if the bill somehow came through when Bonnie Newman would be in the seat, then she would be inclined to vote NO, or at least, would require effort to sway her to vote for the bill.

On top of all that, there is controversy over a Gregg aide with ties to Jack Abramoff.

The situation was bad enough in the reign of George W. Bush, where he hired John Bolton to be the U.S. Representative to the UN, even though a) he didn't want a UN, and b) he served 16 months without ever being confirmed by the Senate. And the sincere difficulty of a Republican administration trying to find a Secretary of Education, when most Republicans want to get rid of the department entirely. Then again, Margaret Spellings' most notable achievement as Education Secretary was objecting to an episode of the PBS show "Postcards From Buster" because the program showed a lesbian couple in Vermont.

Now we have a Commerce Secretary nominee who has called for abolishing the department he's being hired to run.

"Sen. Gregg's record of previously voting to abolish the Commerce Department and his attempts to block President Bill Clinton's efforts to secure adequate funding for the 2000 census raise troubling concerns regarding his commitment to the department's core missions," Congressional Black Caucus Chairwoman Barbara Lee said this week.

Quite frankly, we expect this level of incompetence from cabinet members in Republican administrations. But Democrats are really different. Politics aside, those on the left really care who is in the cabinet. With the problems of Obama nominees, we got reminded that Linda Chavez didn't make Secretary of Labor due to her not paying taxes on domestic help. But in the grand scheme, the difference between Linda Chavez and Elaine Chao for the last eight years is negligible.

President Obama, we issue this challenge: Get us a full and complete Secretary of Commerce that you trust with every responsibility. And if you don't trust Judd Gregg, then he isn't the person for the job.

A BUZZFLASH NEWS ANALYSIS

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