Reply #7: Thanks. I edited before I saw that anyone else was posting. Sorry about that.

[No Elephants]

I don't think any of the edits were substantive or changed the meaning, but I apologize anyway.



Are you asking me why Obama listens to the people whom he hired, knowing who they were and where they stood?

I think he is run by DLC/Third Way/No Labels ideologies, and is by no means putty in the hands of his advisors or of the Republicans. His hires are political cover. And, if he didn't like their advice, they'd be gone. The IRS illustrates that.

Remember during his first term, how the D of J was defending every case against Bushco? Indeed, I think some of the defenses in cases involving gays were even uglier than those put forward in the legal briefs of Bushco. And all we heard from his DU supporters was how independent the D of J is? (As if any employee can be independent from the guy who hires and fires him or her.)

So, Obama got no blame for any of that. However, the independence veil went down when the WH trumpeted that Obama had ordered the D of J to stop defending DOMA cases in circuits in which the circuit court had already held DOMA unconstitutional. Then, Obama got the credit for the order and no one remembered how independent of him they had been saying the D of J was. See, no blame, but all the credit.

Which President could ask for more? And that is the function of all Presidential hires.

At least Bush admitted he was the decider. Sure, his decisions sucked scissors, but he did responsiblity. Clinton (nicknamed, among many other things "the Teflon President") and Obama, though, not so much.

Clinton is still declining responsiblity. As to DADT, he claims Powell misled him. Doesn't mention at all the third corner of the DADT triangle, Dick Morris. Anyway, the notion that either Powell or Morris could have mislead the Rhodes scholar is laughable. But, Bubba is still blaming his adviors, cause that's what advisors are really for, and still getting away with it, because that's what apologists are really for.