Catching Up

I am back after recovering from the post-election crash that came after the election night high! I have been keeping up on Obama's transition, but have not been writing. Here are some of the key stories I have been following:

• Obama's cabinet picks - I am thrilled that Hillary Clinton has been selected as Secretary of State. There have been complaints that Obama has not picked enough women, but I feel that he is truly attempting to pick the right people for each job, while attempting to have diversity. He has focused on diversity of opinion as much as diversity of ethnicity and gender. I am going to give him the benefit of the doubt on this.
• The Blago scandal - Sigh. What can you say about this? Unbelievably corrupt, but I really cannot stomach the Republican party's attempt to smear Obama with this scandal, when you can hear from the Illinois governor's own mouth how much he resents Obama and his team for not playing his game.
• The selection of Pastor Rick Warren to deliver the invocation at the Inauguration - I feel this is very much an unfortunate decision of Obama's. The gay and lesbian community supported Obama in a huge way, even though Obama treaded that fine line of supporting gay rights while stopping short of supporting gay marriage. Given how devastating the passage of Prop 8 was in California for the gay and lesbian community and how it actually tempered the excitement this community (and supporters of gay marriage in general) felt about Obama's victory, I think this now dampens the excitement many people were feeling about this historic Inauguration Day. I am all for being inclusive, but why be inclusive of people who themselves exclude?
• The auto bailout - It is sad that $700B was so freely given to the financial industry with no oversight but when it came to the automakers, many were willing to allow them to fail by not ponying up small fraction of that amount in a loan (not really a bailout) even though it would have potentially caused over 3,000,000 lost jobs. The Republicans were willing to cause this devastation to the economy just to crush the auto workers union. Here is an interesting article debunking the 6 myths about the Detroit 3 that were commonly bandied about during the national debate, probably leading to the public being mostly against the auto "bailout".

Hopefully, I am back on track and will be writing more often. Only 23 more days of President Bush!