After every presidential election, the US government releases the so-called “Plum Book”, a list of the seven thousand or so political jobs in the gift of the new administration. The new one was released this morning and you can see it here.
The Post’s Lois Romano did a write-up on it last week.
As you know, there was a lot of chatter yesterday about Obama keeping Bob Gates on at Defense for some indeterminate period of time. And we can talk a lot about whether or not that’s a good thing. But what I’m not hearing a lot about in this discussion is the role of Brent Scowcroft. And I don’t think any of this can be properly understood without reference to his role.
One thing to understand about Bob Gates is that he’s a Scowcroft guy.
Scowcroft, to the best of my knowledge, never endorsed Obama. But he also, very pointedly, didn’t endorse McCain either. And going back many months he’s been an important player, far in the background and not for public consumption, in the Obama world. Remember, Hagel, who’s sort of been Obama’s Joe Lieberman (in the good sense) is very close to Scowcroft. He and Powell are close too. He’s the guy who brings all this stuff together.
It’s also worth knowing that Scowcroft has also been involved in a multi-year rearguard battle against the neocons in the Bush administration, especially in key efforts trying to block sundry wars with Iran, shut down John Bolton, etc.
This is not to say that Scowcroft is pulling anyone’s strings. But to understand the Gates’ decision (which I understand is going to happen) you need to look at this on-going conversation and perhaps even de facto alliance with the Scowcroft/GOP foreign policy world.
I know a lot of you in the K Street/DC lobbying and meta-lobbying world read TPM pretty closely. So please remember to ping us when you hear about personnel changes and other such happens as the city gears up for the new administration and new congress. Anonymity, of course, guaranteed.
Late Update: Along these lines, from Roll Call …
In the latest example of top GOP lobbyists being shown the door at trade associations and corporate offices, Richard Hunt, senior managing director for government affairs at the downsizing Securities Industry and Financial Markets Association, is leaving the group on Saturday, according to an e-mail announcement from the group’s chief executive officer, Tim Ryan.
Krugman has some background/viewpoint on Baucus taking the lead on health care in the senate.
Sarah Palin sat down for an interview this afternoon with CNN’s Wolf Blitzer, and she’s still talking up Bill Ayers even as she says it’s time to move on. From the transcript of the interview, which has yet to air:
BLITZER: … every presidential campaign, things are said, it’s tough, as you well know, it gets sometimes pretty fierce out there. And during the campaign, you said this, you said: “This is not a man who sees America as you see it and how I see America.”
And then you went on to say: “Someone who sees America, it seems, as being so imperfect that he is palling around with terrorists who would target their own country.”
PALIN: Well, I still am concerned about that association with Bill Ayers. And if anybody still wants to talk about it, I will, because this is an unrepentant domestic terrorist who had campaigned to blow up, to destroy our Pentagon and our U.S. Capitol. That’s an association that still bothers me.
And I think it’s still fair to talk about it. However the campaign is over. That chapter is closed. Now is the time to move on and to, again, make sure that all of us are doing all that we can to progress this nation.
Keep us secure, get the economy back on the right track, and many of us do have some ideas on how to do that and hopefully we’ll be able to put all of that wisdom and experience to good use together.
BLITZER: So looking back, you don’t regret that tough language during the campaign?
PALIN: No, and I do not think that it is off-base nor mean-spirited, nor negative campaigning to call someone out on their associations and on their record. And that’s why I did it.
BLITZER: I just want to sort of footnote, was that your idea or did somebody write those lines for you?
PALIN: It was a collaborative effort there in deciding how do we start bringing up some of the associations that perhaps would be impacting on an administration, on the future of America. But again, though, Wolf, knowing that it really — at this point, I don’t want to point fingers backwards and play the blame game, certainly, on anything that took place in terms of strategy or messaging in the campaign.
Now is the time to move forward together, start progressing America.
Why Robert Gates? In today’s episode of TPMtv we look at the ties between Barack Obama and the Brent Scowcroft foreign policy world that could keep Bob Gates at the Pentagon …
Full-size video at TPMtv.com.
With the cable nets acting as Palin’s enablers, who will organize the intervention?
Top labor leaders are getting together tomorrow in DC to put together their campaign to push for key agenda items from the new administration and new Congress.
Not surprising, but still interesting to note, is that the personnel decisions at Treasury don’t seem that high on their list of concerns.