President-elect Obama and his transition team now have 77 days to assemble a staff and Cabinet, determine the chief policies and goals for their first term and year in office, rework the federal budget accordingly and begin to make 7,840 presidential appointments of which 1,177 will require Senate confirmation. The FBI does the background checks.
Want to see the list of positions at the center of federal government transition? The two definitive sources on this topic are the government’s Plum Book and the Brooking Institution’s Prune book:
Plum Book
www.gpoaccess.gov/plumbook/
The 2004 Prune Book
www.brookings.edu/press/Books/2004/2004prunebook.aspx
GAO Lists Top “Urgent Issues” for Next President and Congress
www.gao.gov/press/press-transition-release2008nov06.pdf
Message to the President-elect’s Transition Team
http://directory.presidentialtransition.gov/
Office of the President Elect
http://www.change.gov
One White House chief of staff, who I was consoling after a particularly tough day, confessed to me that the President’s job was to tell the chosen applicant yes for the 1,177 presidential appointees requiring Senate confirmation and his job was to tell 999 applicants per position no.
Catherine: How likely is it that Obama’s a Wall Street trojan horse designed to saddle this country with a Joe Biden presidency?
Why doesn’t the FBI check to verify to see if Barack Obama was born in Kenya and also if he is a national security risk to our republic and our Constitution?
Webster Tarpley wrote a “quickie” book about Obama where he states that he is a tool of Zig Bryzynski(sp?) and the trilateral commission who have been grooming him for a long time. Tarpley states that they are more interested in confronting China and Russia, initially by way of Pakistan, and less interested in the middle east. He states the neocons have already been replaced and predicts that it will be worse in the longrun than a Mc Cain/Lieberman ticket;here obviously he guessed wrong. Notice Obama has been already forewarned to follow orders–remember the recent most likely skinhead/neo nazi plot against him. Tarpley’s 9-11 book synthetic terrorism is a must read and the best I”ve come across on the subject and the modus operandi.