Who will President Dean pick for Defense and CIA Chief?

[WhoCountsTheVotes]

Wait - the rules are:

1. A long time Democrat, never supported a Republican.
2. Not in any way related to PNAC, NED, AIPAC, or S&B.
3. Have some credibility with the people they will manage.

Any ideas?

[Evil_Dewers]

1. Hypothetical GD post. n/t

[IranianDemocrat]

2. He'll get rid of the Defense Department...

..instead we'll all hold hands and sing kumbaya.

[WhoCountsTheVotes]

5. Obviously not, don't bash

The Dean campaign has an idea of who they could pick for CIA chief and Secretary of Defense. I would like to know what names are floating around.

[BlueEyedSon]

8. No, that's Kucinich....

:)

[LoneStarLiberal]

3. After those three points?

You just eliminated all the best possibilities.

[poskonig]

4. Why all of the restrictions?

What I think you really mean:

If someone is qualified for the DoD job, then he is qualified for president. Wes Clark is qualified for the DoD job. Therefore, he is qualified to be president.

Of course, a competent Republican like Bill Cohen is not the guy we would want leading the Democratic party. Hence we have a contradiction, and the argument fails.

[WhoCountsTheVotes]

6. No, not at all

The arguments for Dean being more qualified for President are legitimate points whether I agree with them or not. However, if associations with these groups cause suspicion that someone is working for Bush or the people who run Bush, then Dean's campaign should be just as suspicious of the people they will hire. So I'd like to know who can fit those criteria.

This is a legitimate question.

[poskonig]

7. How can people work for an unemployed Bush in the government?

The entire notion sounds like far-out conspiracy theory stuff to me. Rethink what you a trying to say.

[LoneStarLiberal]

14. Guilt By Association is Foolish

Some associations should definitely raise flags. Some associations should not. Looking at your original list:

1. A long time Democrat, never supported a Republican.

**Doesn't raise a flag. There are as many stripes of Republicans as there are of Democrats (well, maybe not THAT many!). The point here is simply that dogmatic adherence to party party party doesn't guarentee that you have the right person for the job. It should be merit and qualification, not dogmatic voting.

2. Not in any way related to PNAC, NED, AIPAC, or S&B.

**Define related. If someone sat on PNAC's Board then I would side with you. Someone that credible to PNAC is obviously not credible to do either job you discussed. I disagree on NED and AIPAC and don't know what you refer to when you say S&B. NED is not a monolithic institution like PNAC or AEI. While I have some definite disagreements with AIPAC, there are moderates in that organization as well.

3. Have some credibility with the people they will manage.

**No bones here. I think if you adhere to merit and qualifications as your criteria for selection instead of dogmatic voting and guilt by association, #3 will naturally occur.

[Classical_Liberal]

15. Ned is actually a pretty bad red flag

in my view. I remember the Contra wars.

[LoneStarLiberal]

17. Political Influence on an Institution

NED is a large institution. I agree with you that they have been bent to do some in Washington's political dirty work in the past, specifically in supporting the Contras and trying to get rid of Ortega.

Indicting the whole organization because they were used doesn't make sense to me. They have an overall very positive track record in the impact of their grants.

If we're going to do that, we had best go ahead and dispose of the U.S. Institute for Peace now that Pipes on the Board of Directors...at least until 2005.

[Classical_Liberal]

18. Can you site them having been used for anything other

than overthrowing Governments, including some Democracys like Chile and Venesuela?

Ned is a neocon org.

[LoneStarLiberal]

19. Here's Just A Simple Selection...

NED mantains a database, The Democracy Projects Database, where you can go look at their grants:

<http://www.ned.org/dbtw-wpd/textbase/projects-search.htm>

Just searching on "Africa" and "2001," you get the following returns:

Grantor: NATIONAL ENDOWMENT FOR DEMOCRACY (NED)
Grantee: American Center for International Labor Solidarity
Country(ies): Swaziland
Region: Africa
Subject(s): Labor
Grant Awarded: 2001
Amount: $60,813
Program Summary: To enable the Swaziland Federation of Trade Unions (SFTU) to develop the awareness of leaders and members, providing them with the knowledge and skills to strengthen governance, democracy and worker rights.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Grantor: NATIONAL ENDOWMENT FOR DEMOCRACY (NED)
Grantee: American Center for International Labor Solidarity
Country(ies): Zambia
Region: Africa
Subject(s): Elections; Labor
Grant Awarded: 2001
Amount: $100,775
Program Summary: To support the Zambian Confederation of Trade Unions (ZCTU) to educate its regional leaders and the general membership, with the long-term objectives of strengthening the labor movement and fostering union participation in the 2002 elections.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Grantor: NATIONAL ENDOWMENT FOR DEMOCRACY (NED)
Grantee: American Center for International Labor Solidarity
Country(ies): Zimbabwe
Region: Africa
Subject(s): Elections; Labor
Grant Awarded: 2001
Amount: $71,001
Program Summary: To identify coordinators to conduct education outreach, voter motivation and election monitoring programs for rural workers during the three-month period leading to the 2002 presidential elections. Five meetings will be held to disseminate information on election issues, voter registration and mobilization.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Grantor: NATIONAL ENDOWMENT FOR DEMOCRACY (NED)
Grantee: American Center for International Labor Solidarity (ACILS)
Country(ies): Sierra Leone
Region: Africa
Subject(s): Labor; Education; Rule of Law; Elections
Grant Awarded: 2001
Amount: $75,770
Program Summary: To assist the Sierra Leone Labour Congress (SLLC) in promoting the rule of law and peaceful and fair elections, through civic education and training of election monitors.

Supporting the education, training, and outreach of labor unions in sub-Saharan Africa and providing money for the SLLC to develop civic education programs (VIP in post-conflict environments) and election monitoring programs doesn't strike me as very neo-conservative.

I'm sure if you search enough you can find stuff that is neocon sounding. My point is that not all of it is; in fact only a minority of it is.

[mandyky]

9. I think Clark would be a great DoD and

any Senator who's worked on Intelligence or Foreign Affairs would be good candidates for CIA.

What I wonder about is Dean's State Dept. picks. He obviously won't do like Bush and give big donors and fundraisers ambassadorships. It will be a sight to watch him chosing these folks.

[Classical_Liberal]

13. Unfortunately he is in NED

.

[Feanorcurufinwe]

10. Who will President Mosely Braun pick?

[kiahzero]

11. Certainly not Clark,

at least for DoD. I doubt he would take it even if it were offered. Maybe they might find a home for him in CIA, if they didn't can Tenet, but I doubt it.

Note: I am a Clark Supporter

[Classical_Liberal]

12. Gary Hart

.

[LoneStarLiberal]

16. My overall matrix of qualifications

A matrix would take too much time. Here's a list so everyone can get mad!

President-Anyone except Lieberman
VP-Anyone except Lieberman
State-Anyone but Lieberman; Clark, Kerry, or Edwards would be great.
Defense-Anyone but Lieberman; Clark or Kerry are the two I think of.
Justice-Anyone but Lieberman; I think Edwards would be great here.
Treasury-Anyone but Lieberman; Clark, Edwards
Energy-??
Interior-??
Ambassador to U.N.-Anyone but Lieberman; I think Moseley-Braun would be better than anyone else in the field in this position
CIA-Here I would suggest someone in-house be promoted

[woofless]

20. Boy, talk about counting your chickens before they hatch!! n/t

[Dudley_DUright]

21. I agree

This is akin to Arnold talking about his first hundred days as CA governor. Let's be confident, but not arrogant. One step at a time baby, one step at a time.