Definitely the Wrong Appointment

Though the campaign, some observers assumed that Obama was probably earnest about some of his positions and opportunistic about others.

Of course, that was right. But the outlook is still cloudy.

On the one hand, his foreign policy appointments, with Gates at Defense and Her Majesty at State suggest what we now clearly can expect: a drawdown and redeployment of troops in Iraq at the same pace as McCain (a.k.a. Bush's third term) would have pursued the same.

On the other hand, many of Obama's economic appointments have been sensible as well, sticking with veterans of the Clinton and Carter eras who were fiscally sensible.

So far, it's as good as a thoughtful person could expect.

On the third hand, we now have what is clearly the worst appointment so far to what could otherwise have been a key post: White House Trade Representative. Obama's announcement that he is appointing Xavier Becerra, described by the leftist rag The Nation as "a member of the Congressional Progressive Caucus who frequently scores 100 percent ratings from the AFL-CIO, the Sierra Club and other groups that have been at odds with the trade policies of the past several administrations."

Great! As the LA Times observes,

Free trade irks many liberals because it can shift American jobs to other countries, but it almost invariably does more good than harm, lowering prices for goods and creating new jobs to make up for those it displaces. What's more, history shows that the last thing the country should do during an economic downturn is become more protectionist. A year after the market crash of 1929, Congress passed the Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act, raising U.S. tariffs dramatically in an attempt to protect jobs. It fueled a global meltdown that greatly worsened the Depression.

We'll watch now for the appointment to Agriculture. Unless Obama makes a bold move toward someone with the will to cut subsidies, we'll assume that he was dead (pun intended) serious about protectionism. And in that case, we think that the present recession may be just the beginning of this new FDR's legacy.