"We expect that we can accelerate the process of confirmation in the Senate,"

Well with two Senators running the show, I should hope they could count on their old buddies for a little rhythm!

That and chances are they'll nominate palatable choices.

I do like the "No Lobbyists" mantra though! He made a point of it during the campaign and by golly he's following through from the looks...

What would signify an independent for Cabinet purposes? An elected and declared independent? How may of those are there? I can't see a cabinet made up of anything other than Democrats really, I mean it's not like there is a lot of cabinet posts. Counting under/deputy secretary posts it would make more sense, and staffers of course.

Dang. They're burning it up in DC. It sounds like they're going to cut a lot of the fat and red tape from these processes.

You guys really need to come up with another section of the site for this stuff. It's not really TPMElection Central anymore. And the overwhelming majority of items are going to be like this until the election cycle kicks up again in late 2009 heading into 2010.

They're not really TPMCafe, since those are really the home of a different batch of Bloggers/Writers than the In House ones.

Need to come up with a new beast for this type of Blog/Diary/News style entry and add it to the menu above.

In addition to that, you guys really need to thread/duplicate Josh's own blog entries into it so that we can comment on them. I can understand not wanting to have a sea of comments on a front page entry. But there are times when the comments sections add a lot of value to the original blog entry. It's not just that there are a lot of good posters here. It's more than we'll often see good items in the comments section that are worth of "update" comments out of the original writer. Often we'll see that done where Eric (for all we get on him) or Greg pick up something from the comments section, look into it a bit, and then update the original article, or if they dig up more spin it off into a new article.

With Josh's stuff, what we end up getting is people e-mailing him. Some of it gets shared in follow up entries. But there's no doubt that he gets so much that a fair amount of good stuff just can't be rolled out.

I suspect all of us see a few Josh blog entries from the front page each day that we'd like to add a thought to, beyond the simple "Me 2" and "Preach It" variety. :) Having his entries thread through to a section that contains items like this one from Eric woudl facilitate it.

Last add:

I hope that with the election slowly wrapping up that The Muck gets some love, attention and focus. When it's on, it really is one of the biggest assets of the site. We all know that there is going to be an ungodly amount of stink coming out when the Bush Admin slips out of town and some of these Departments and Agencies are looked into without Executive Priv being tossed around. We need The Muck to be on the top of its game chasing that stuff down. That's not a knock on the crew there at the moment - all of our focus was on the Election.

But I think it's more important than every for a strong Muck to be in operation. There's going to be a big desire on the part of a lot of people to sweep all the crap under the rug. It's not just the Bush Admin and their Lockstep GOP members of Congress, but also Democratic Enablers who would like to see a lot of it ignored to avoid their own role in the rape & pillage of the past eight years. We're going to find a lot of things that embarass our own party. No doubt more of it embarasses the GOP. But we need to get it all out in the open. When they try to bury it, we need folks dragging it out for exposure, even if it's uncomfortable.

So I'm hoping that come the new year, the Muck takes off again to be one of the flagship elements of the site. Given the coverage of the Alaskan Scandals over the past year and how well dialed into coverage that the Muck was, I have confidence that will be the case. Just want to give the thumbs up and encouragement to go out and get it done. :)

John

Why is the transition (and related things) funded by anybody but government anyway? Seems rather odd. I mean we don't have private donors fund Air Force one, etc. Transition processes should be funded with federal dollars only.

A full scale repudiation of the past eight years is what is needed, and should be Obamas calling card.

In a way its similar to Reagan saying "tear down this wall" except this wall was put up by the gop to divide America, and they have used it to hide behind while lobbing grenades over it.

Yes tear down the Bush policies, reverse everything, and, again quoting the non-living president, as Reagan said in 1981 proclaim "a new beginning".

Obama's not messing around! He sounds like a man with a plan.

• The cabinet will have not just Democrats, but also Republicans and independents, "not just at a token level."

Ya know, I didn't work at this just so that we can get the Republicans back in. I gave $$ and worked at this so that we could move away from the Republican philosophy of robbing the poor to give to the rich. So we could no longer concede that only Republicans are competent to run the "Defense" department. So we could have equal rights for everyone, not just the straight. So we could guarantee that my daughters had the right to choose whether they had children or not.

I'm hoping I'm wrong... but why am I getting the nasty feeling that me and my fellow progressive DFH's are gonna get tossed under the bus?

The Obama team means business with this transition.

I am going to paraphrase Atticus Finch here, because it is apt.

"The witnesses for the state, with the exception of Maycomb County, have presented themselves to you gentlemen, to this court, in the cynical confidence that their testimony would not be doubted, confident that you gentlemen would go along with them in the assumption--the evil assumption--that all Republicans lie, that all Republicans are basically immoral beings, that all Republicans are not to be trusted around our women, an assumption one associates with minds of their caliber. . . You know the truth, and the truth is this: some Republicans lie, some Republicans are immoral, some Republican men are not to be trusted around women. But this is a truth that applies to the human race and to no particular party of men."

There is much reason to want retribution and to exclude all Republicans or their ilk--including the likes of Joe Lieberman--from being within 100 feet of any lever of power.

But this way insanity lies.

Because if someone is not courageous enough to act upon reason and break this cycle of partisan one-upsmanship, it will never end. Never.

Obama is that man.

When I voted, I voted for a man who believes that we are not red states or blue states, but the United States. And I voted for him because I expected him to act on that belief.

This is what change looks like. Real change.

And if that means what I hoped it meant--that we could gather into the government those among us who are serious and who seek to govern this nation--actually govern it--for the collective good--then we will all be better for it.

What we have lacked these last eight years is a government that actually governs. Instead, we've had a government that acts to accrue power into the hands of one party. I remain utterly unconvinced that the accrual of that same power in the hands of a different party to the exclusion of all others is the answer. We need something different.

And what I am seeing so far is a promising start. If you voted because you thought you were getting something else, you haven't been listening to the man we just elected.

Nunn was hired by the transition team to dead up the defense transition and Warren Christoper tapped by the transition team to head up the state department handover.

It's going to take a while to wipe the giant dirty ass that Bush left us with. And I mean wipe it clean!

Meanwhile- I am all for collaborating with those Repubs who are not rabid and are really willing to put their shoulders to the wheel & help get us out of this ditch... BUT having "nice" Repubs around just to appear "post-partisan" (whatever the hell that means) is a recipe for watering down this realignment and wasting this historic moment. Besides, this "inclusiveness" seems unfair to those talented, hard-working, life-long Dems who have been on the bench for so long.
BTW: What the heck is a "DFH"?

Meanwhile- I am all for collaborating with those Repubs who are not rabid and are really willing to put their shoulders to the wheel & help get us out of this ditch... BUT having "nice" Repubs around just to appear "post-partisan" (whatever the hell that means) is a recipe for watering down this realignment and wasting this historic moment. Besides, this "inclusiveness" seems unfair to those talented, hard-working, life-long Dems who have been on the bench for so long.
BTW: What the heck is a "DFH"?

I feel like opposition to any republican candidates in the cabinet is a bit ridiculous. Some posts, in my opinion, there doesn't really seem to be a democrat way to run it or republican way to run it. I personally think Gates has done a fine job since taking over. Should we find another hire who may be worse just because they support Barack Obama. Especially in the military, I don't care if they are D or R, most just want to get their job done. Sec. of Defense is in charge of defense, so go defend. I doubt that Obama will allow them to work by themselves without allegedly telling them that they are doing illegal activities.