Neil Sinhababu and Nicholas Beaudrot's political blog
Friday, October 2, 2009
Playing Fetch With Blue Dogs
Warms my heart to see Ellen Tauscher in an honest line of work. When you can turn a more-conservative-than-her-district centrist Democrat who is doing the banking industry's bidding into an administration spokesperson against missile defense pork that destabilizes our relationship with Russia, you've done well. Russian cooperation on nonproliferation issues has a greater security value than extremely unreliable missile defense technology. Tauscher, Matt told us a while ago, was always right on this one. I'd love to see similar executive branch offers made to Blue Dogs who have the right positions on some narrow issue or other, but are otherwise causing trouble. (If next year's elections turn out badly, of course, many of them may need new jobs.)
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2 comments:
I had to read this twice but it's early. It's the pork that would have destabilized our relationship with Russia, not the turning of Tauscher from a troublesome Congressperson into an Undersecretary. It seems clear to me now, but for a second there I was like, wha?
To your point, I agree that one of the smartest things this administration did in January and February was hire many of its potential problems out of Congress, or Utah governorships. If only he could have offered Grassley a gig; not Ag Secretary, of course, but something else like janitor or Bo-poop-scooper.
Sorry, this is the kind of thing that happens when I try to get a post in during the 15 minute break in the middle of a 3 hour seminar :)
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