Obama Cabinet Chess

Ask a stupid question...
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Note to self: Keep thinking aloud to myself.

Also, you know, the ethnic designations are increasingly blurry. We're talking about William Richardson, latino. Not Emilio Estevez. No wait.....

Jay
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In theory it sounds good. But some how I doubt the first black president of the United States will be saying no to naming minorities in his cabinet. Besides that Obama is still a politician and he knows that if he snubs Latinos they may well shift to the right. So you can pretty much rest assured that there will be miinorities sprinked throughout his administration and Cabinet. Now that isn't to say they wont be qualified but the truth is how do you say one person is more qualified than another when it gets to that level? Could there be someone better qualifed to put in at Commerce than Richardson? Maybe but I don't think you could make a clear cut case of someone being better than him. So if 3 guys are similarly qualified I don't see how anyone can say for sure that if he picks one of them that happens to be a minority that they would be a quota pick. But conversely if no or very few minorities are picked its a lot easier to say Obama white washed his cabinet because its right there staring you in the face.
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One thing that can't be stressed enough is the meme that Obama's election has made this country post racial is pure bullsh!t. And the one thing that will cause an uproar from the minorities in this country is if they get the impression that Obama is pulling a Clarence Thomas and by that I mean climbing all the way up the ladder only to pull it up behind him and close the door on other minorities who are trying to follow in his footsteps. Believe it or not the black community may well turn out to be the demographic that Obama has the most problems with because they are going to want to see that he has their interests in mind and at heart in some of the decisions he makes. Is it fair? Maybe, Maybe not. But it is reality whether anybody likes it or not.

Dee
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Fortunately you don't have to worry about that, because those same media people will tear the minority picks down anyway whether Obama is using identity politics or not. Haven't you heard, Barack Obama is an affirmative action president anyway!
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Seriously there is no way to win in this situation because of Obama picks too few minorities (in their opinion) he will be pilloried by many on the left and if he picks too many (in their opinion) he will be pilloried by the right. So he might as well hire whomeever the hell he wants and let everybody else sort out their feelings about it!

What does post-racial mean? Can I still be afraid of Kimbo Slice, because I totally am.

Yes, and where are the openly gay, they of the single testicle, transgenders, Asians, certainly the Asians, perhaps a few Arabs, a Persian, and partridge in a pear tree.

F-ck a duck woman, what kind of nonsense are you penning here. Could you raise your own bar just a bit.

She's getting married, he's a great guy, he loves her to death. They seem very happy, have a lot of common interests, are committed to family, are quite progressive and concerned about their community.

If Jay and her MSM cohorts were to announce this blissful union, it'd be "she's marrying a Mexican--where did the all the black/white/yellow potential grooms go?"

I'd expect this nonsense from someone 30 years your senior but get your head out of your colored arse.

Politico is reporting that Rep. Raul M. Grijalva may end up at Interior.

Latinos delivered Indiana? Not being flip, just had no idea there was a large Latino population there.

my understanding of the negotiations was they wanted either one of the big 4 (treasury, state, defense or justice) or three of the second tier.
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I admit that I had no idea there were such negotiations, and I'm kinda surprised about it.

pourme
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You didnt see the little guy beat the sh!t out of Kimbo Slice a couple of week ago? It was EMBARRASSING!
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One thing that can't be stressed enough is the meme that Obama's election has made this country post racial is pure bullsh!t.
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Of course it isn't. One thing his election does is make it easier to communicate the idea that worrying about race is a stupid waste of time. he can say that more persuasively the George HW Bush can.
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Look, he can certainly find qualified people with ethnically diverse backgrounds to fill these seats. It's not that hard. There are only a few of these positions. So I'm not gonna get that worked up about it. If he's got three equally qualified people and one is a LGBT female whose half asian and half Colombian, well fine. But the point is that this consideration should be utterly irrelevant to the job. In a business, it makes sense to encourage diversity for its own sake. For almost every job there are people of different backgrounds who can fill them, and a diverse work environment is a better work environment. Plus, as long as discrimination lasts, people discriminated against are cheaper to hire at a given talent level.
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But to make ethnic background a high priority criterion is the thinking that got us Clarence Thomas. I don't need any more of that.

I demand Obama have some Indian (not Native) American representation. We make up like 46% of the smartest people in the country, but never get cabinet spots. HOGWASH.

All I'm saying is that a little diversity would be good, to represent all cultures here in America..
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This always makes me laugh, coming from members of the media. Check out the masthead up there, the photos.

they
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who is the they that wanted this?

"Word is the Latino community is not very happy that right now it looks like they won't get 3 of the second tier."
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"Word is"-What exactly does that mean? I'm not being snide.

hickory
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I am not trying to be funny but there was an Indian guy from Treasury testifying on the hill the other day about the bailout. Somebody had to appoint him or hire him.

sg, is that Kimbo Slice stuff just fake like professional wrestling?

PNNTO
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There was a lady on MSNBC who is an advocate for Latino causes and she said straight up that there is a growing displeasure in the Latino community over the lack of Latinos being mentioned as possibilities in Obama's cabinet

I am not trying to be funny but there was an Indian guy from Treasury testifying on the hill the other day about the bailout. Somebody had to appoint him or hire him.
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That's my point. We're always relegated to underling status. They use our brains then kick us the curb.
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:p

formerlyjames
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Nope its true MMA but its a lower tier than the UFC. Actually they have some pretty big names in that outfit including Frank Shamrock but mostly they get UFC rejects or over the hill guys.

[...] Reines, Senior Adviser, Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton I can't help but wonder: where did thehttp://swampland.blogs.time.com/2008/11/21/obama-cabinet-chess/Penny Pritzker: Commerce Secretary?Penny Pritzker: commerce Secretary? - The Huffington [...]

Atheist, where's the damn atheists. No Oriental, no American Indians, no one from Indiana, no Hawaiians, no gays, no cloned robots, what kind of administration is this? This is all so dumb. Here was have the nation's first black President (Sorry Bill) and we can't let him pick his own cabinet, to try to choose the best people for the job irregardless of race, religion etc. Everyone needs to just get a life!!!

jay
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Clarence Thomas was a bad move but don't forget that before him was Thurgood Marshall who you would have to say was named to the SCOTUS in at least a small part because of his race and he turned out to be a damm good justice. Sometimes you can serve two masters and have it come out fine

JNS,
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Wait, what negotiations? Are you saying there is some mystical group of people that control how every latino in America votes? And Obama only got the votes of ANY latinos at all because he promised this mythical person(s) some specific ratio?
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Stupid me, I thought latino's broke heavily Democratic for the same reason blacks usually do. Because the Republicans demonize them to rile up their rural white base.
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Also, what's up with the racist spellchecker? It marks uncapitalized "latino" as mis-spelled, but is cool with uncapitalized "white" and "black".
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Also, also, seconding jayack in #39, why don't YOU have any latino's on here? Surely there have to be SOME latino political reporters in the land who could do this job. Guess every latino in America will stop reading Time now because no one who looks like them works there. Because you know, people only do things so that folks they don't know who have superficial physical resemblences to them can get ahead in life.