All that change rhetoric turned out to be hollow, too.
MSM focuses on this:
"Vacancies abound in crucial US posts; Obama vetting policy slows appointments" by Farah Stockman and Bryan Bender, Globe Staff | February 27, 2009
WASHINGTON - As President Obama rolls out one of the most ambitious agendas in US history, federal agencies are struggling to administer hundreds of billions of dollars' worth of new projects and to enact sweeping policy changes with a mere handful of senior staff members in place, in part due to an increasingly tough vetting policy initiated by Obama himself.
Only about 70 people have been formally nominated to fill the roughly 500 senior posts in the Defense, State, Treasury, and Education departments and dozens of other government agencies, according to White House records. Dozens of nominations are still pending as FBI and White House officials scrub potential nominees' tax returns, financial ties, and former activities in government.
It is not unusual for a new administration to take several months to fill political slots, but the absence of senior officials has been felt more keenly under Obama, who is vowing to quickly disburse a $787 billion stimulus package, revamp education and healthcare, and tackle two ongoing wars....
Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner.... has been forced to rely on temporary holdovers from the Bush administration and overworked career staff members. An army of temporary private attorneys has been hired to write the contracts that inject capital into more than 30 banks a week, but some Treasury officials say that other offices are severely hampered.
Education Secretary Arne Duncan has received $115 billion in economic stimulus money - almost twice the department's normal annual budget - including $5 billion of discretionary funding to spur education reform, an amount far higher than any previous education secretary ever has been given. The first wave of funding is meant to be spent in March. But so far, only one of 16 senior officials has been nominated to Duncan's team, so planning is being done by aides, temporary helpers, and career staff....
The Department of Defense is in better shape than most agencies, largely because Secretary of Defense Robert M. Gates agreed to stay on and has temporarily retained many Bush administration officials.... Still, the world appears impatient for the Obama administration to get its people in place....
What, like it is going to matter?
--more--"
