Controversial Appointments & Cliffhangers

From the polls, it looks like Obama will be our next president.  So who will he be appointing to high office? 

Deval Patrick, who avidly backed censorship and racial quotas, has been suggested for the Supreme Court.  Ed Whelan looks at his left-wing record of pushing racial quotas, which drew criticism from even from liberal judges and liberal Senators like Carol Moseley Braun, and suggests that other choices would be better. 

Patrick, who has also been suggested as a potential attorney general, has claimed that speech opposing halfway houses for substance abusers (defined as disabled by the Fair Housing Act) is as unprotected as using “baseball bats” to deny them access to housing.

Obama aides have suggested Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. for Secretary of Interior.  But legal commentator Walter Olson calls him “America’s most irresponsible public figure” for scaring parents into not getting their children vaccinated for diseases, and labeling those who disagree with him as traitors.  Even the liberal publication Slate describes Kennedy as “too partisan and kind of a nut.”

The ABA Journal predicts that Charles Ogletree will be in charge of civil rights at the Justice Department, despite his controversial remarks blaming America for 9/11 and calling America a racist country.

Let’s hope better-qualified people actually end up getting these jobs.

(McCain has his own truly stupid advisers, like Martin Feldstein, whose proposal to buy up all the bad loans in America has been aptly described as “the stupidest idea I’ve ever heard,” and cost him the support of the editor of the Arlington Sun-Gazette, one of the few moderate or conservative papers in the Washington, D.C. area.  But McCain’s advisers now appear to be moot).

In contrast to the presidential race, many Congressional races will apparently be cliffhangers this year, as previously “safe” Republican seats have become fiercely competitive.  The Democratic majority in the Congress will expand, perhaps including a filibuster-proof majority in the Senate. 

From the latest polls, many Congressional races look like they are neck-and-neck and will be decided by a tiny margin.