Obama Tells Bush Appointees At Pentagon To Clean Out Their Desks

7:29 pm EST January 1st, 2009 | News | 16 Comments

Despite keeping Defense Secretary Robert Gates in the Pentagon, President-elect Obama’s transition team informed 90 Bush appointees their services will not be needed after Inauguration Day.

Scott Gration, a senior official on Obama’s transition team, called and emailed several of President Bush’s Pentagon appointees about 10 days ago to inform them they were being dismissed.

I’m still not wild about Gates staying on, but at least he seems competent and he was not from the Rumsfeld/Cheney world of incompetence + megalomania.

Topic: National Security, President Obama

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16 Responses to “Obama Tells Bush Appointees At Pentagon To Clean Out Their Desks”

C.S.Strowbridge says:

January 1, 2009 at 8:58 pm

He should fire all Bush appointees everywhere and tell them they can re-aply for their jobs under the new administration.

This includes the newly appointed one with set terms. And if you can’t legally fire them because of these set terms, hire someone else to do their jobs and the Bush appointee out of the loop.
Quaker in a Basement says:

January 1, 2009 at 9:12 pm

Let’s go ahead and get something out of the way right up front: No, Mr. Tea, this is not the same as the Bush administration firing U.S. Attorneys for political reasons.
Sean D. Martin says:

January 1, 2009 at 9:56 pm

I tend more toward the “better an innocent man go to jail than 100 go free” side on this one. Yeah, there are no doubt some quite competent folks at Justice who would be unfortunately caught in a “fire all the Bush hires” sweep.

But the penalty isn’t like tossing an innocent in jail, they can reapply (CSS and I agree, again (it does happen)) and the potential problems caused by letting a partisan hack remain is too big a risk.
Jaim says:

January 2, 2009 at 1:31 am

This is SOP for DC. People who want to make a career in the Fed know this. For example, my mom worked at the Dept of Education in the late 70′s. When Reagan was elected, she started looking for new work right away. (Hello, non-profits.) It’s just the way things are done.

That said, Obama should publicly announce that he _is_ going to purge all Bush II appointees and hires. This might make him even more popular than he already is, given both the reality and perception of how awful the government was run under Bush II.
C.S.Strowbridge says:

January 2, 2009 at 2:04 am

“That said, Obama should publicly announce that he _is_ going to purge all Bush II appointees and hires. This might make him even more popular than he already is…”

I agree, on both parts.

Fire them all and watch his approval soar. Except it is already at nearly 70%, so it doesn’t have that much room to grow.
ed says:

January 2, 2009 at 10:01 am

Except it is already at nearly 70%, so it doesn’t have that much room to grow.

Perhaps Obama could actively dismiss multiple and dire warnings that religious lunatics are planning a spectacular attack the U.S. at any moment. That worked out splendidly for Commander Bunnyapants’s approval ratings (and for the U.S. in general).
Station Agent says:

January 2, 2009 at 2:14 pm

Obama kept Gates so he would have some cover if Iraq goes to shit. I’m surprised Gates allowed himself to be set up this way. Hopefully it just means they’re all n the same page–16 month withdrawal, then Gates goes home.
mapaghimagsik says:

January 2, 2009 at 2:51 pm

I’d like to think that Obama is keeping Gates on because he’ll do what he’s told — er excuse me, implement policy. Only time will tell.
ed says:

January 2, 2009 at 3:32 pm

I’d like to think that Obama is keeping Gates on because he’ll do what he’s told — er excuse me, implement policy. Only time will tell.

I’d like to think it’s to give Obama cover for the various shit that’s gonna go down as we get out of ‘Raq. Likewise I’d like to think that letting the truly douche-riffic America’s Pastor speak at The Inauguthon gives cover for O to repeal DADT and/or DOMA. But as Berube notes, we’re saying “I’d like to think…” about O’s picks a bit too frequently.
Jay Tea says:

January 2, 2009 at 3:43 pm

ed, you have to keep saying “I’d like to think…” about Obama because you didn’t listen to him during the campaign.

Obama opposes gay marriage. He’s said so repeatedly.

He does oppose DADT, but that would take an Act of Congress to change, as it was Congress that put it in place.

Obama’s backed off his Iraq withdrawal timetable. (I guess someone told him that things are going pretty damned well over there — we just turned over the Green Zone to the Iraqi government yesterday.)

This is the downside of electing a self-described “Rorshach blot” of a candidate. He’s not living up to the expectations you so cheerfully projected on to him.

And I hope that everyone hear remembers this “clean sweep” attitude when the next Republican gets elected… lord knows I wish Bush had.

J.
Parthenon says:

January 2, 2009 at 3:52 pm

JT, I hear that rorschach blot comment once in a while, and I just don’t see any merit in it. I’ve been reading this book about former British PM Anthony Eden – his foreign advisor Nutting describes him pre-Suez Crisis as a tactician at heart, not a bull-headed strategist like Churchill that would set a course and stick to it no matter what. Eden would shuck and jive, stick and move, responding to his opponents’ moves.

Thing is, both he and Churchill got a hell of a lot accomplished, though Eden, being a member of the conservative party, was denounced regularly for his methods by his own ostensible allies. I don’t think there’s any secret that American conservatives prefer the Churchill model, but that doesn’t mean somebody of the Eden model – as I believe the new President to be – can’t succeed as well as the bullheads.
Quaker in a Basement says:

January 2, 2009 at 4:07 pm

Obama’s backed off his Iraq withdrawal timetable.

Now, now, Mr. Tea. What was our deal about checking your facts?
Repack Rider says:

January 2, 2009 at 5:18 pm

Obama’s backed off his Iraq withdrawal timetable. (I guess someone told him that things are going pretty damned well over there

Are you saying that Iraq has stopped costing us money? That all those people we killed are alive again? That the electricity is on again and the water and sewage systems are working? Would “going pretty damned well” include the fact that this was going to cost virtually nothing, but instead has cost us hundreds of billions?

If you had a contractor tell you that the remodel on your kitchen went on five years longer than expected, and cost @$700 billion more than the estimate, would you consider that “going pretty well”? If a total stranger killed a bunch of your family members while shooting at someone else, would you consider that “going pretty damn well” for the stranger?
ed says:

January 2, 2009 at 7:58 pm

He does oppose DADT, but that would take an Act of Congress to change, as it was Congress that put it in place.

Yeah, but as Prez, he could, like, you know, make something happen.

(I guess someone told him that things are going pretty damned well over there — we just turned over the Green Zone to the Iraqi government yesterday.)

Probably someone from the Bush, Jr. Administration (or Rich Lowry–it’s a fine line) told him that. By the way, when weren’t things going swimmingly in Iraq, according to Team Bunnypants? Have you talked with any remaining Iraqis who haven’t fled as refugees how things are going? Was Invading Iraq a good idea? Why did the U.S. invade Iraq anyway, what’s the party line in 2008?

This is the downside of electing a self-described “Rorshach blot” of a candidate. He’s not living up to the expectations you so cheerfully projected on to him.

And the downside of reading right wing talking bits is that I can’t have that time back. What were your expectations of George Bush, Jr.? Did he meet them? Did you project any on him, Rorschach style?

And I hope that everyone hear remembers this “clean sweep” attitude when the next Republican gets elected… lord knows I wish Bush had.

It would seem Obama’s sweeping is thus far competence based, not ideology based. But please let me know if any of Team Obama rejects overseas military support based on their position of abortion. Let me know if any qualified judicial applicants are rejected because they are merely rumored to be gay.

Expecting Obama to be the second coming of Lincoln may be setting the bar too high. But after the past 8 years of the Worst Administration Ever and their zombie-like adherents (e.g., Jay Tea), the U.S. and the rest of the world will be much better off.
Duros62 says:

January 2, 2009 at 8:29 pm

It would seem Obama’s sweeping is thus far competence based, not ideology based.

In addition to being at the beginning of his term, not halfway through.
Bill L. says:

January 3, 2009 at 6:06 am

I still worry about the world class f*ckups on his economic team. I can only hope that it only SEEMS like Obama has learned NOTHING from the crisis at all and still clings to the disastrous Milton Friedman Chicago school of economics. The only rationale I can think of is he wants to give his policy changes cover by wrapping them in the “familiar” for Wall Street so there won’t be as much opposition from the Right. Off course, that won’t help because the GOP are already declaring war on Obama’s administration.

As for the Pentagon, let’s hope douche bag extraordinaire Jim O’Beirne gets the heave-ho, too