Many in the media trying to redefine the meaning of "change"

[DCBob]

This Wasn't Quite the Change We Pictured
By David Corn
Sunday, December 7, 2008; Page B01

The more things change, the more they stay . . . well, you know. And looking at President-elect Barack Obama's top appointments, it's easy to wonder whether convention has triumphed over change -- and centrists over progressives. A quick run-down: Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, who supported the Iraq war until she initiated her presidential bid, has been handed the Cabinet's big plum: secretary of state. And Bush's second defense secretary, Robert Gates, will become Obama's first defense secretary. The Obama foreign policy adviser regarded as the most liberal in his inner circle, Susan E. Rice, has been picked for the U.N. ambassador slot. Obama is elevating this job to Cabinet rank, but he's still sending Rice to New York -- and in politics and policy, proximity to power matters. For national security adviser, Obama has picked James L. Jones. The retired four-star general was not hawkish on the Iraq war and seems to be a non-ideologue who possesses the right experience for the job. But he probably would have ended up in a McCain administration, and his selection has not heartened progressives.

Obama's economic team isn't particularly liberal, either. Lawrence H. Summers, who as President Bill Clinton's Treasury secretary opposed regulating the new-fangled financial instruments that greased the way to the subprime meltdown, will chair Obama's National Economic Council. To head Treasury, Obama has tapped Timothy F. Geithner, the president of the New York Federal Reserve, who helped oversee the financial system as it collapsed. Each is close to Robert Rubin, another former Clinton Treasury secretary, a director of bailed-out Citigroup and a poster boy for both the corporate wing of the Democratic Party and discredited Big Finance. Obama's Economic Recovery Advisory Board will be guided by Paul Volcker, the former Fed chairman whose controversial tight-money policies ended the stagflation crisis of the 1970s but led to a nasty recession. (A genuinely progressive economist, Jared Bernstein, will receive a less prominent White House job: chief economic adviser to Vice President Joe Biden.)

It's no surprise that many progressives are -- depending on whom you ask -- disappointed, irritated or fit to be tied. Sure, Obama's appointments do represent change -- that is, change from the widely unpopular Bush-Cheney status quo. But do these appointments amount to the kind of change that progressives, who were an essential part of Obama's political base during the campaign, can really believe in?

more: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/12/05/AR2008120502602.html
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Funny how the media is redefining change for Obama. During the campaign Obama never said change meant more liberal or more progressive. What I heard him say repeatedly is that change meant a more open transparent government -- more influenced by regular citizens than by high powered lobbyists and corporate fat cats. Change would come from bottom up, not top down and change would be unity, not division. I guess many in the media were not listening.

[Arctic Dave]

1. I can't believe people actually think that the media is going to

be on Obama's side. What they did to Clinton will be grade school pranks compared to what the repugs will do to Obama. We will have to work as a team, just like we did when we helped him get elected if we want to see any change for the better.

[DCBob]

2. I don't expect the media to be on Obama's side but it would be nice if they could report the facts.

This notion that Obama's change message meant more liberal or more progressive is non-sense. He never said that.

[gravity]

3. The media is just looking for drama

If Obama picked fresh cabinet choices, the media would be talking about how inexperienced they are.

[DCBob]

4. No doubt. Always trying to create a controversy.

If he picked a bunch liberals/progressives they would also be saying where's the unity?