Melody! Obama Taps a Progressive and Nobody in the Media Knew It

[Coexist]

http://narcosphere.narconews.com/thefield

The most interesting news out of the press conference just concluded by President-elect Obama was the appointment of an unabashed progressive, Melody Barnes (in the photo, above), to head the Domestic Policy Council. Barnes will coordinate the mega-board of the Cabinet secretaries of Health and Human Services, Justice, Labor, Education, Housing and Urban Development, Commerce, Energy, Treasury, Agriculture, Transportation, Interior and Veterans Affairs. Basically, she'll be domestic policy czar.

The other announcements were interesting, too.

Remember just a week or two ago when the conventional wisdom screeched in the language of "done deals" that President-elect Obama would nominate Lawrence Summers to the newly all-powerful role of Treasury Secretary?

It was only late last week that signals were sent that Tim Geithner - who, we learned this morning, speaks Chinese and Japanese, in addition to English - would get the nod instead. Interestingly, Geithner has never worked on Wall Street. His career has been mainly devoted to public service and not private profit. That's encouraging (and makes him quite distinct from the Robert Rubin looter-and-pillager mold that the media drones on about today).

Summers has instead been nominated to head the National Economic Council. But more interesting about today's press conference was that Obama also nominated two women to the other top economic posts that until earlier this morning nobody, but absolutely nobody, had predicted.