Obama is believed to have been vetting billionaire Penny Pritzker for the post of Secretary of Commerce. Pritzker was the Obama campaign’s finance chairman; the two of them have long-standing ties in Chicago. However, a wrinkle has already made itself evident: Pritzker’s years-long history in the subprime mortgage industry. Her experience in the business goes right to the heart of the housing and credit meltdown: she and the bank she helped run in the early 1990s made a great deal of money converting subprime mortgages to securities and selling them to investors. Amazingly, the McCain campaign never brought this up to any noticeable degree during the election season, but now that it is drawing attention, it’s finally causing Obama some embarrassment. So much so, in fact, that Pritzker has withdrawn her name from consideration for the Commerce post.

Status of appointment: Story confirmed; acceptance initially forthcoming but withdrawn. Obama transition team cites “vetting issues.”

Another appointment appears to be going a bit more smoothly: Governor Janet Napolitano (D-AZ) has been named for Secretary of Homeland Security. Napolitano has made a few headlines on the immigration enforcement front, but her performance is dubious. Miz Michelle notes:

She vetoed a bill cracking down on phony matricula consular cards for illegal aliens and rejected efforts allowing more cooperation between local law enforcement and the feds. She opposes assimilationist measures on English language and ID requirements to prevent voter fraud; she supports in-state tuition discounts for illegal aliens.

In short, her record implies that she’s not big on enforcing existing immigration law, and the purportedly tough laws she has approved on the immigration front were intended primarily to take the air out of even tougher ballot measures being pushed by voters.

Status of appointment: Story and acceptance confirmed; Senate approval likely.

Over at the Pentagon, Obama appears to be mulling an interesting choice that is sure to rile his supporters on the antiwar left. He appears to be considering keeping current Secretary of Defense Robert Gates where he is for a while. Obama did say he’d reach across the aisle to make his Cabinet bipartisan, but this is a hell of a place to start! Not that I’m necessarily complaining; Sec. Gates oversaw the revamping of our approach to the Iraq War to include the troop surge that completely turned the war around (is this Obama’s way of finally admitting that the surge worked?). However, Obama’s core supporters who voted for him as an antiwar statement will not be thrilled with Obama putting a Bush Administration veteran at the head of the Iraq effort.

Status of retention: Unconfirmed but signals lean toward retention. Senate approval unnecessary.

Meanwhile, in Foggy Bottom news, Bill Clinton has just made a major move toward facilitating the ascent of Sen. Hillary Clinton (D-NY) to Secretary of State. (Earlier post on the subject here.) He has agreed to reveal information about donors to his charitable foundation on which previously he had kept a death-grip, even during Hillary’s presidential campaign. There is still no solid offer on Obama’s part, nor an explicit expression of interest on Hillary’s part, so we still don’t know for sure whether Hillary wants the job, but from this unexpected spasm of transparency on Bill’s part we sure can get a sense of how much he wants it for her.

Status of appointment: Still pending; interest unclear. Intensifying vetting process may signal that there’s more communication between the Obama and Clinton camps than meets the eye.

Whew! Will bring more news as it comes.

More on the history leading up to Holder’s tearing his way through the hair ceiling below the break.

Anyone who has noticed the photo at Witsnapper’s upper right can imagine why this is an issue near and dear to my heart. Could this mark the beginning of the end of the heartbreaking prejudice against high government officials with facial hair? And I’m not talking about Cabinet secretaries way down on the ladder, such as Bush 43 Veteran’s Affairs Secretary Jim Nicholson or Clinton Labor Secretary Robert Reich (in fairness, Reich’s perpetually scruffy and rumpled look didn’t do us much good in the public eye). No, I’m looking at the offices of President, Vice President, and the “Big Four” Cabinet posts — State, Treasury, Defense, and Attorney General.

Among Eric Holder’s predecessors, you have to go back a century to find one who isn’t clean-shaven. Teddy Roosevelt’s appointed Attorneys General, William Henry Moody and Charles Joseph Bonaparte, both had sturdy mustaches. William McKinley’s Joseph McKenna (later of the Supreme Court) had a beard with no mustache; the last AG to have a full beard was the rather dashing Charles Devens, from way back in the Hayes Administration (Devens left office in 1881).

Of the remaining high offices I mentioned:

President: No facial hair since William Howard Taft; no beards since Benjamin Harrison.

Vice President: No facial hair since Charles Curtis (Hoover); no beards since Charles Fairbanks (T. Roosevelt). Note: Fairbanks limited himself to an abundant Vandyke, no full beards since Schuyler Colfax (Grant).

SecState: No facial hair since Dean Acheson (Truman); no beards since Charles Evans Hughes (Harding, Coolidge).

SecTreas: No facial hair since Andrew Mellon (Hoover); no beards since Lyman J. Gage (McKinley, T. Roosevelt).

SecDef/SecWar: No facial hair since Henry L. Stimson (Taft, F.D. Roosevelt, Truman); no beards since Russell A. Alger (McKinley). Note: Again, Vandyke alert on Alger. No full beards since Redfield Proctor (B. Harrison).

It appears that the public appetite for bearded high officials died with World War I, and for officials with facial hair in general with World War II. However, given the resurgence of the hirsute in the Cabinets of Presidents Bill Clinton and George W. Bush and President-elect Barack Obama, I notice something else. These are the three post-Cold War presidents. Could politicians’ skittishness about facial hair have had something to do with the images propagated by our 20th-century global adversary?

The end of bearded officials coincides roughly with Russia’s Communist Revolution and the ascendance of the nattily goateed Vladimir Lenin, and the end of the mustache as an accessory among our officials came at about the same time as the rise of the heavily mustachioed Josef Stalin. It’s entirely possible that American politicians began avoiding beards and mustaches to deny their opponents an important talking point: “Look at him! He even looks like a damn commie!”

For those proud American patriots who go unshorn perhaps because, just for random example, we look 12 years old when clean-shaven, the eventual shedding of this stereotype — heralded by the appointment of Eric Holder — will come as welcome relief indeed.

First, the most recent: for Secretary of Health and Human Services, President-elect Obama is believed to have chosen former senator Tom Daschle (D-SD), defeated for re-election in 2004. Word is Daschle will also act as the White House’s point man on health policy (“health czar”), which means he will be more influential in the actual writing of the President’s health care policy than a HHS Secretary normally would be.  Daschle is currently a special advisor to a Washington lobbying firm. He is not a registered lobbyist, though his wife is, and she does have some health industry clients.

Status of appointment: Story and acceptance confirmed; Senate approval likely.

More appointment news from the hiatus below the break.

OK, next, a roundup of recent news:

• Secretary of State: Sen. Hillary Clinton (D-NY). This was the first trial balloon (if it is that) to make a splash in the news. If it’s true, and she accepts, she can probably forget about being elected President. As a top official in the Obama Administration, she would have a tough time mounting a primary challenge to the incumbent in 2012. If Obama wins a second term, she could take up a bid for the nomination in 2016, but there are a couple of problems there. First, she will have been out of the world of elective politics for eight years. Second (how to put this delicately?), in 2016 she will be nearly 70 years old. Only one person has been elected President in that age range, and Hillary Clinton is no Ronald Reagan (68 when elected in 1980, 72 when re-elected). Plus, even though Reagan ran against two younger Democrats, you don’t have to be younger than Reagan to be old, and Jimmy Carter and Walter Mondale were no spring chickens; the next two elections will likely see GOP nominees considerably younger than Clinton.
  Status of appointment: Still a disputed rumor, but Hillary is believed to be “torn” over the possibility nonetheless. (More here and here.)
  
• Attorney General: Attorney Eric Holder, former Deputy Attorney General under Bill Clinton. Historic appointment in that Holder would be the first black Attorney General. One possible stumbling block is that he is generally believed to have facilitated the outrageous last-minute pardon of financier and international fugitive Marc Rich, a major Clinton donor. Even if Republicans do make a stink over the Rich pardon, however, they don’t have the power to block the nomination, nor is the Rich pardon politically explosive enough (at least not anymore) to embarrass Holder.
  Status of appointment: Story and acceptance confirmed; Senate approval likely.
  
• Secretary of Defense: Sen. John McCain (R-AZ). This rumor popped up briefly, but it’s not likely. Some wags thought Obama would be anxious to show his vaunted “spirit of bipartisanship” and reach out to his former opponent with a nice plum appointment like SecDef. I don’t see it happening. Granted, Republicans don’t have to worry about Arizona’s Dem governor Janet Napolitano whittling away further at their minority, since she would be required by state law to replace McCain with an appointment of the same party, but that doesn’t make much difference, given that McCain has already announced his intention to run for re-election to the Senate in 2010.
  Status of appointment: Busted.
  
• White House Chief of Staff: Rep. Rahm Emanuel (D-IL). This one already is all but a fait accompli. Rep. Emanuel, the former advisor to Bill Clinton and former DCCC Chairman, is known for being a pit bull who not only makes enemies easily, but seems to relish doing so. Emanuel is currently assisting in Obama’s transition process, and is being referred to as his de facto Chief of Staff. Many Republicans take this appointment as a sign that President Obama will not be nearly as bipartisan as he claimed during his campaign; hiring a party-line enforcer like Emanuel to a position that is better suited to a manager-type than an advocate-type might strike some as strange. Also, why would Obama give such a high-profile position to a former board member of Freddie Mac, and close ally to Illinois governor Rod Blagojevich, who now faces possible impeachment or recall?
  Status of appointment: Story and acceptance confirmed; Senate approval likely, and to a certain extent is already in practice.

Those are the biggies so far. More as events unfold.

UPDATE: Reader jonolan advises that we look for Obama to reach out to Colin Powell for SecDef. He’s got a point. It could easily explain Powell’s way-late and weakly-worded endorsement of Obama’s presidential bid (I posted about the endorsement’s lameness a few weeks ago). The Obama campaign may well have noticed that they still hadn’t sewn up the election by late October, and figured that an endorsement by a Republican, even a liberal one, might do the trick, and gone to Powell with the promise of a plum appointment. Powell, in turn, might have figured that serving in an Obama Administration might finally get people like Harry Belafonte to stop going on TV and calling him a “house slave.”

Sen. Jim DeMint (R-NC) had already written up a resolution of expulsion from the GOP conference just in case Stevens managed to stage a comeback, but DeMint was persuaded to hold off until the election results were certain. Now the expulsion plan has been shelved, as Alaskan voters have done the job Senate Republicans should have done months ago.

Total Senate seats in Democratic hands in the coming Congress: 58. Number of Senate races with results yet to be determined: two (MN and GA). Chances of a filibuster-proof Democratic majority: long, but still within reach, at least in terms of party. Republicans may be virtually incapable of mounting a filibuster in a practical sense anyway, given their demonstrated aversion to anything resembling a sense of unity.

Gulf fritillary, on thistle

This shot was taken at the Ding in Sanibel, on the ever-teeming Yellow Trail of the Bailey Tract.  It wasn’t really until I got my DSLR and more powerful lenses that I was able to count on capturing passable shots of small, elusive subjects like insects. Butterflies, especially, seem quite loath to allow me to get physically close enough for a good photo without the help of a lens of considerable magnifying power. Well, my arsenal has expanded, so taste my Zoom of Fury, bugs! Eat shutter! Hah!

It took me a while to find out what this butterfly was called, since I’m not an insect expert and haven’t spent nearly as much time observing bugs as I have birds. Fifteen or twenty minutes on Google helped me out. The Gulf fritillary’s little green buddy at the lower right is still a mystery to some degree, but for now I’m guessing an ordinary, run-of-the-mill greenbottle fly.

Next stop: Photo Break.

The very same people who don’t want the Fairness Doctrine want the FCC [Federal Communications Commission] to limit pornography on the air. I am for that… But you can’t say government hands off in one area to a commercial enterprise but you are allowed to intervene in another. That’s not consistent.

So Senator Schumer believes that you can’t regulate hardcore smut flicks and, at the same time, not regulate mainstream conservative talk radio, because that just wouldn’t be “consistent.” You see, it’s all or nothing when it comes to government intrusion. You can’t hide your kids’ eyes from a degrading cable goatsex simulcast, and still leave them free to turn the radio to Laura Ingraham. For the love of all that is sacred, Think Of The Children!™

Which side of this inconsistency bothers you more, Sen. Schumer? That mainstream conservative talk radio may be inappropriate and harmful to minors or those with delicate sensibilities? Or is it that bondage reels won’t give sufficient “equal time” to the submissive party for rebuttal?

More here, here, and here.

UPDATE: Barack Obama has won the election. First, congratulations, Mr. President-elect. Second, I ask that you resist Sen. Schumer’s entreaties for an appointment as your new Minister of Information.

Of course the first “investigation,” spearheaded by State Sen. Hollis French, did the damage it was designed to do. Exoneration now comes too late for the damage to be undone. But then again, that was the point of French’s crusade to begin with…it was never to punish wrongdoing, just to punish opposition (which, in French’s fevered mind, amounts to a distinction without a difference).

How else to explain why French’s entire set of findings rested on the perceived violation of an unenforceable non-statute (a violation which the more recent investigation found wasn’t worth the air Sen. French wasted on it)? How else to explain why no charges were filed? How else to explain why the French panel’s findings were never adopted by the Alaska Legislature, or any committee or subcommittee thereof?

There is no other explanation. Sarah Palin did her job, and abused no aspect of the office. Sen. French tried to dance around it, and fortunately nobody applauded, but then he wasn’t going for the applause, was he?

An investigative report in Minnesota has found that ACORN workers went to prisons in an effort to add the wards of the state therein to the voting rolls. (Link via Hot Air; click through for interesting video.) Needless to say, Minnesota law forbids voting by convicted felons, let alone by those still serving out their sentences.

How convinced do you have to be of your own safety from the reach of the law in order to send your voter-registration apparatus into a place where you are virtually guaranteed to find nothing but throngs of the ineligible?

(I’m waiting for an ACORN spokesman to explain that they weren’t actually targeting the felons in Minnesota’s prison system. I’m laying odds that ACORN comes out and accuses America’s right wing of actively seeking to disenfranchise Minnesota’s prison catering community. Let the Ladle Guys Vote!)

“Regardless of the timing or method of the release of these remarks, the message from the Democratic candidate for President could not be clearer: the Obama-Biden ticket spells disaster for America’s coal industry and the tens of thousands of Americans who work in it.

“These undisputed, audio-taped remarks, which include comments from Senator Obama like ‘I haven’t been some coal booster’ and ‘if they want to build [coal plants], they can, but it will bankrupt them’ are extraordinarily misguided.

“It’s evident that this campaign has been pandering in states like Ohio, Virginia, West Virginia, Indiana and Pennsylvania to attempt to generate votes from coal supporters, while keeping his true agenda hidden from the state’s voters…”

More commentary, with expanded text of the OCA statement, here and here. References made to an old Biden Gaffe Watch favorite.

No word yet as to the effect of Obama’s “bankrupt” comments, or Carey’s response, on other coal-producing swing states such as those Carey mentions, or others such as Missouri, Iowa, Colorado, or New Mexico.

The number of fundamental policy positions on which Obama has simply and brazenly reversed himself is staggering, especially (as MKH puts it) while “floating above us all as the post-partisan redeemer of America.” Ham expresses regret at not having posted this video earlier; I regret it also, since it’s over three and a half minutes long (way too long for a TV spot) and won’t be carried anywhere but the Web; if it had been released earlier, it might well have filtered into TV news coverage. I should note that I don’t say that as a knock against her (it’s a very effective clip collection, and good on her for getting it out); just as a measure of agreement that it’s a shame it took longer to assemble the requisite video than she expected.

More here, here, here, and here. Jim Geraghty sums up the message: “All Barack Obama Statements Come With an Expiration Date. All Of Them.” The blog post that follows that title, a roster of major policy positions that make up Obama’s flip-flop playlist, is truly breathtaking; a wonder to behold.

“I think we’ve run a really good campaign,” Biden said Monday. “And for all the stuff about gaffes, I don’t think there have been any real gaffes,” Biden said. “I mean, I don’t see anything in your polling data demonstrating any of that stuff you guys love to write about.”

“I never make any big, big gaffes,” he added. “I mean, you guys love saying that about me, but I tell you what, just look at the numbers. I don’t have any problem with what I’ve said and there’s nothing I’ve said that I would back off of.”

Republicans have ripped numerous Biden remarks over the past few months, with Sen. John McCain calling him “the gift that keeps on giving.”

And there you have it: the Biden Gaffe Watch’s first “Biden meta-gaffe.” It takes a true gaffemeister to commit a gaffe about your own gaffes.

UPDATE: Following close on the heels of Biden’s first meta-gaffe is Biden’s first “gaffe sandwich” (my own phrase), which is what I call a rare moment of lucidity enclosed on either end by incomprehensible blather. The moment of lucidity?

“I shouldn’t be going off like this, but…”

The rest of the gaffe sandwich? Well…why don’t you check it out for yourself.