Making Government Smaller?

Don Surber has an interesting post up about the Administration--or lack thereof:

After 51 days in office, Barack Obama has appointed only 73 people to 1,200 jobs that require Senate confirmation.

If they require Senate approval, they are important jobs.

But Obama is too busy to properly vet the people and appoint them to fill the jobs to get the work done.

That is his job.

Perhaps if he could actually appoint people to the top jobs who won't resign or refuse, they might be able to fill those spots? Well, except Geithner, who still doesn't have any help while he battles the economy.

This has serious repercussions:

“But yesterday, Sir Gus O’Donnell, Britain’s most senior civil servant, exposed transatlantic tension when he protested that Downing Street was finding it ‘unbelievably difficult’ to plan for next month’s G20 summit in London because of problems tracking down senior figures in the US administration. ‘There is nobody there. You cannot believe how difficult it is,’ the Cabinet Secretary told a civil service conference in Gateshead.”

Well, on the upside, until those positions are filled there's no one drawing all those paychecks. That should put a crimp in the deficit, right?

Believing His Own Press?

James Morrow suggests that Obama's main problem is just trying to do too much at once.

The President needs to focus all his energies on restoring credit flows and national and international confidence in the American economy and its private capital markets. Now is not the time to tackle health care reform or attempt to impose the huge inefficiencies of a carbon cap-and-trade system on the US economy, nevermind the illusory promise of so-called "green jobs".

Obama's sort of stressed out, all over the shop sort of urgency does not inspire the feeling that the US has a confident, inspiring captain at the helm for the difficult times to come.

Instead, it calls to mind thoughts of the stressed-out housewife pleading, "Calgon, take me away!"

I remember him saying during the campaign that the economy meant that some agenda items would have to wait, that naturally there would need to be some programs that would need to be cut for now. What happened to that Obama?

I think both he and the Democratic congress got it into their heads that they have a mandate to clean up every little problem in the first year. I think Rahm Emanuel talked them into "going for the gusto" while they've still got high support and a convenient crisis.

I think they're wrong. They would have been well-served to focus their attention on one or two things, show a good, solid victory, and then move on with even greater support. This approach seems too much like they don't have enough faith in themselves or their ideas. They want to hurry and ram everything through before we can catch on. Sometimes haste means something is important, but far too often in Washington haste just means you've got something to hide.

A slower, more deliberate, more bipartisan approach (don't just blame the GOP for not playing ball, make an actual effort to include them--even Obama supporter Warren Buffet is saying it!) may be more difficult, but it would instill more confidence and show an administration that truly is confident and in control.

Instead we have this chicken little firedrill with the administration running around in every direction throwing buckets of water on everything that moves while very little gets thrown on the actual fire.

Change?! We Don't Need No Stinkin' Change!

Obama nominee Kagen is all set to reverse Bush's policies. NOT!:

Elena Kagan, Dean of Harvard Law School and nominee for Solicitor General, announced that she believes that the government has the authority to detain indefinitely terrorism suspects because the country is "at war" with Al Qaeda. Because I am busy finishing edits on a law review article, can someone please explain to me how this differs from Bush's position, which liberals condemned, bashed and burned in effigy? (from Dissenting Justice via Instapundit)

Oh, times they aren't a-changin'....

National Security Council Expanded

Karen DeYoung of the Washington Post has the details:

President Obama plans to order a sweeping overhaul of the National Security Council, expanding its membership and increasing its authority to set strategy across a wide spectrum of international and domestic issues.

Is this a good thing or a bad thing? Too soon to tell. It's a known maxim in business that "to err is human, but to really screw things up requires a committee". All I know for sure is that if this were Bush making this change there would be all sorts of protests.