Those of us who were following the Obama transition last year in order to read the proverbial tea leaves on his administration were really worried. There were way too many Clinton administration retreads and a particularly embarrassing Bush regime retread. Our worries turned out to have been justified, with Obama running a failed, Clintonian Republican administration so far. President Obama needs to clean house. Here are some high powered appointees that desperately need to go.

Chief of Staff: Rahm Emanuel
When an administration is adrift and flailing in terms of both message and policy, there has to be a serious problem at this position. An inept Clinton administration retread, Emanuel first came to national prominence by abusing his position at the DCCC to divert campaign contributions from anti Iraq War contributors to corrupt, pro Iraq war Phonycrats. He also diverted a lot of money to misogynist extremists who don't even recognize the inalienable right of women to choose on abortion.

Emanuel has pursued his Phonycrat agenda in the White House as well. He has favored the banksters over the middle class, HMOs over patients, and bigots over targets of their bigotry. He has absolutely nothing positive to offer and needs to go immediately.

Secretary of Defense: Robert Gates
This corrupt Bush regime official never should have been kept on in the first place. His efforts to drag on the Iraq War indefinitely are what we should expect from someone completely beholden to Big Oil, the mercenary corporations, and the arms merchants. He represents everything that is corrupt and reprehensible about the neoconservative cabal that has way too much power in DC.

Robert Gates hates American values as much as the Christian Coalition and Al Qaeda. He is a dangerous enemy of this country, and he needs to be fired ASAP.

Secretary of State: Hillary Clinton
Ms. Clinton is one of the least diplomatic people outside of the World Wrestling Federation and rightist talk radio. At best, she has been ham fisted. At worst, she has continued the campaign she started in 2007 to try to get us into a war with Iran, and she has deliberately stirred the pot in Palestine by showing favoritism to the apartheid Israeli government.

This is precisely what we would expect from a militant, Christian fundamentalist like Ms. Clinton, but it is reprehensible that an Obama administration has this bellicose blowhard as Secretary of State. Clinton's good words on the human rights of women have been rendered meaningless by her endless Crusades to slaughter women who aren't Christian and who aren't white. Obama should cut her loose show she can cash in by writing her bitter and self absorbed autobiography.

Director of the National Economic Council: Lawrence Summers
If you need any clue on why Summers was such a terrible hire in the first place, this quote from the Wikipedia article on him should clarify things quickly.

Upon the death of libertarian economist Milton Friedman, Summers wrote an Op-Ed in The New York Times entitled "The Great Liberator" arguing that "any honest Democrat will admit that we are now all Friedmanites." Summers wrote that while Friedman made real contributions to monetary policy, his real contribution was "in convincing people of the importance of allowing free markets to operate."

This was a flat out lie. No Democrat is a Friedmanite. Only Phonycrat frauds are Friedmanites.

Lionizing Milton Friedman, one of the most murderous kleptocrats in world history, should be enough to have kept Obama from hiring a monster like Summers. Yet, Summers' record in the Clinton Administration was even more reprehensible and dangerous. Summers efforts to push through financial deregulation and corrupt trade deals like NAFTA and the GATT agreement that created the World Trade organization make Summers one of the people most responsible for causing the Crash of 2008.

In his current position, Summers has been a stone wall blocking real Wall St. reform. He is so corrupt that he doesn't even support undoing all of financial deregulation that he supported before, much less an additional crackdown on the banksters and brokesters that is desperately needed to protect the long term stability of our economy. He has steered bailout money to the rich while screwing over the middle class and the poor. He has pushed the involvement of wasteful, corrupt, and deadly HMOs in healthcare "reform" instead of supporting the more humane and cost effective single payer alternative.

If Obama doesn't want another crash to destroy his presidency, he needs to fire Summers and reverse that monster's extreme right economic policies.

Photo: jurvetson