Opinion: A Barack Obama Cabinet takes shape (at least in one website’s mind)
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Not to put the cart before the horse or anything, but EbonyJet.com -- the website for the two Chicago-based magazines begun decades ago to focus on the African American market -- has set about doing some serious imaginings about what an administration headed by hometown hero Barack Obama might look like.
The first predictive installment -- of five -- didn’t just confine itself to the high-profile posts that so many are musing about. No, Eric Easter, chief of digital strategy and political commentator for the site, truly dared to get into the weeds.
For instance, he tabs as Transportation secretary another Chicago pol, Rep. Jesse Jackson Jr.
And as U.N. ambassador, he selects Al Gore.
It’s all fun to chew over, including the major picks. Those include:
Secretary of State -- Bill Richardson (with apologies offered to Joe Biden).
Attorney general -- John Edwards (whom Easter tabs as ‘a natural’ for that job).
Defense secretary: Republican Sen. Chuck Hagel of Nebraska.
And then there’s the Big One -- running mate. Easter’s choice is one who’s been prominently mentioned by others (and pictured above), Sen. Jim Webb of Virginia. (For some of the recent blog chatter about Webb-as-veep, go here, here, and here.)
All of Easter’s roster for an Obama-run executive branch (which even includes a ‘transparency czar’) can be perused here. In the piece, he also offers ...
... this prelude:
‘Anyone looking for a big list of black folk will be disappointed. My cynicism tells me that an Obama Cabinet will be less black than both the Clinton and Bush administrations. That’s the first thing the press and his critics will be looking for. He’ll need to reassure America by leaning more broadly and more nonpartisan. ‘My guess is that black folk will show up in the White House staff and the less well-known outer reaches of government where they will be highly influential but less visible until a second term.’
-- Don Frederick