11-20-08, 10:07 am
Economic news continues to worsen. Unemployment has risen sharply. The Consumer Price Index (CPI) dropped of one percent, the sharpest drop in its 51-year history. While workers and consumers will be happy to see the CPI drop, retirees who have their benefits tied to it won't. These are further signs of the dangers of a global depression, which the outgoing administration is doing nothing about and the Republicans in the lame duck Congress are blocking any progress on.
The good political news is that President-elect Obama continues to address the crisis people face by calling for a stimulus package. In an extensive interview on CBS's 60 Minutes on Sunday, he re-iterated these commitments. When asked if he believed in a balanced budget, he said that he did, 'but not now,' in this crisis. In 1932, Roosevelt also called for a balanced budget but soon came to realize that federal aid to the people and to state and local governments, along with serious regulation of capital, was necessary to face the depression.
In related news, Obama has apparently appointed Tom Daschle as Secretary of Health and Human Services. Daschle, a long-time progressive Democratic Senator and leader in the Senate from South Dakota is an excellent choice for this important position, since it deals with federal health care and social welfare policy. His past leadership role in the Senate will make it much easier for the administration to develop a national health care program and other necessary social service policies.
Obama is carrying forward the transition in a steady way, making appointments early and moving forward. Former Deputy Attorney General Eric Holder has been named by some media reports as a likely appointee as the first African American Attorney General. This choice is more complicated. Holder is the son of West Indian immigrants who grew up in the Bronx and attended Stuyvesant High School (one of New York's elite public high schools for outstanding students), and then Columbia University. After working with the NAACP's Legal Defense Fund, Holder served in the Justice Department as a trial lawyer under both Carter and Reagan and gained a reputation as a foe of corruption, a reputation which grew when he became Attorney General. Ronald Reagan appointed him to a Superior Court Judgeship in the District of Columbia, and in the first Clinton administration he served as US Attorney for the District of Columbia and then Deputy Attorney General.
In private practice since 2001, Holder has represented powerful corporate clients. One of those clients was Chiquita Brands for whom Holder helped settle a Justice Department case against them for supporting Colombian death squads with a guilty plea and a $25 million fine. That and the fact that he was initially appointed by Ronald Reagan will no doubt lead to criticism from the left, for which he deserves to be scrutinized. Republicans, however, are attacking him for his alleged involvement in Bill Clinton presidential pardon of corrupt financier Marc Rich. From my readings, there is little there, and I doubt that they will criticize Holder's corporate clients.
On the more important questions, however, the potential nomination of Holder is a good decision. Over the past four years, Holder has strongly criticized the US Patriot Act, the use of torture as part of the policy of fighting 'terrorism' and the violation of habeas corpus in government surveillance policy. Based on this record, Holder is a strong candidate for reversing the anti-civil liberties, anti-civil rights policies of the Bush administration, which is the most important assignment for the next Attorney General.
Discussions continue concerning Hillary Clinton for Secretary of State. While I would consider Bill Richardson a much better choice among those who have been suggested, Clinton would be implementing Obama's policy, not making her own. She would also be out of the Senate and out of position to play an obstructionist role against the administration. Clinton's appointment would also play on the 'team of rivals' concept Obama has long advocated, a reference to Abraham Lincoln who in 1861 appointed his major opponent for the Republican presidential nomination as Secretary of State.
We can expect the administration at the top to be a mix of progressive and organization Democrats, similar to the early New Deal, except back then a number of the leading progressives were former Republicans and/or independents. At the lower echelons, the New Deal from the beginning drew on progressive activists, militants from labor and a variety of social movements, who, with Roosevelt's election, rose to greater prominence. Similar activists have been inspired by the Obama campaign and played a leading role in making Obama president. Now, hopefully they can help make Obama, in the tradition of Lincoln and Roosevelt, a great president for the people, unlike Coolidge, Reagan and Bush, who were 'great presidents' for the corporations and the rich until the money began to stop in 2008 in ways that are reminiscent of 1929.
--Norman Markowitz is a contributing editor of Political Affairs.
