Generally speaking, I have been on board with how Obama has picked his Cabinet.
While I don't completely love the centrism of several nominees, I have enough faith in his executive judgment that he knows what people can get the jobs he will ask them to do done.
But this, to me, is going too far:
President-elect Barack Obama chose a longtime Democratic defense expert and industry lobbyist to be the No. 2 official at the Pentagon on Thursday, and flanked Bush administration holdover Robert Gates with other Democratic advisers.
Obama's choice to be the deputy defense secretary, William J. Lynn, was a top Pentagon budget official under former President Clinton and a defense adviser to Democratic Senator Edward Kennedy before that.
Lynn is currently a senior lobbyist for defense contractor Raytheon Co., and his selection stands in contrast to Obama's campaign promise to keep lobbyists at arm's length.
"Because Mr. Lynn came so highly recommended from experts across the political spectrum, the President-elect felt it was critical that he fill this position," Obama transition spokesman Tommy Vietor said.
Granted, the article does note that:
The transition team instituted a policy that said lobbyists can work for Obama's transition if they stop their advocacy efforts and avoid working in any field that they lobbied on in the last year.
But this is still a fairly ridiculous justification. You're going to tell me that the Deputy Secretary of Defense ISN'T going to have his or her fingers in every pie? That there will be no conflicts of interest whatsoever?
To me, it's one thing to keep Gates for operational continuity. I question the wisdom of a lot of those "operations", but I'm not sure I wouldn't, if put in that position, keep Gates.
But I'm sorry, I think that this is the absolute wrong choice. It practically guarantees that we will have no significant defense spending reduction (which is a major key to our fiscal insanity). Not only that, putting a defense contractor near the top of the DOD is tantamount to an endorsement of the military-industrial complex.
I guess I can't be totally surprised that Obama wouldn't make huge changes at the Pentagon, but I was hoping for better than putting a fox in the henhouse and continuing to put our federal budget at risk.