In a sharp departure from the incoming Obama Administration's steady drumbeat of proposed appointments, heavy on prior federal government experience and traditional policy heft, Senior Presidential Advisor David Axelrod confirmed early Tuesday morning that after receiving an angry petition from liberal action group ChangeNow!, President-Elect Obama is dismissing his entire cabinet-in-waiting and replacing it with angry progressive bloggers.
In a statement later released on YouTube, the President-Elect explained his move. "When I began this movement for change on the icy steps of the State Capitol in Springfield, Illinois two years ago, I had no idea that I would receive $600 million from all kinds of Americans, especially really pissed off Americans who spend all their time on the Internet. Nor did I expect that after winning the Presidency with the highest Democratic vote percentage in forty-four years, they would immediately train their ire on me. But after the election, in which I had thought a majority of Americans voted for the kind of cabinet I was assembling, it is time for me to admit what they've been saying for three weeks: the folks in the blogosphere really got me elected. And that's why after reading this sharp petition from ChangeNow! about centrist creep in my policy team, I have directed the transition team at www.change.gov to appoint only the most orthodox progressive bloggers to the Cabinet."
At a press avail in Chicago, Obama spokesperson Valerie Jarrett introduced the replacement cabinet, and displayed all of their avatars. "I know you all were expecting us to announce that Secretary of Defense Gates was going to stay on for a year, to enable our redeployment of troops on the fastest schedule consistent with our commitments in Iraq. But as you know, that plan is no longer operative. So while he may not have Secretary Gates' relationships with our military leaders in the theater, or any specialized knowledge of the military, TruthMonkey29, a commenter at HuffingtonPost until recently employed as a computer engineer in San Bernardino, knows one thing -- we need to get out of Iraq on January 21. We expect Secretary TruthMonkey29 to get the troops back, potentially by January 27 or so, consistent with his last blogentry at HuffPo." With Eric Holder displaced as the head lawyer by the netroots' uprising, Ms. Jarrett went on to introduce Attorney General Testing, of TalkingPointsMemo, who took questions from media at www.lingr.com about his plan to press for immediate indictment of every elected and appointed official of the Bush Administration.
In a concession to the sensibilities of those spending less than three hours a day on message boards, the President-Elect did agree to appoint one Cabinet Secretary with a conventional human name, and to release his actual picture. John Wheeler, of Tacoma, Washington, an unemployed lawyer blogging under his own name at firedoglake.com, agreed to accept the nod at Treasury, where recent posts indicate that he will both abolish coin money and refuse to spend bailout money even if ordered to and jailed for refusing to do so, a very real possibility at the hands of Attorney General Testing.
On the news of the blogger replacement Cabinet, the markets plunged from Monday's close of 8,443.39 to Reagan-era levels just below 3,000. Nonetheless, bloggers cheered. At dailyKos, truthkitty wrote: "I thought all that talk about reaching from the left toward the center was just trickery to get elected. I was aghast that Obama was trying to govern from a coalition that, if it held, might be 60% of the American people! The opinions of the people to the right of the leftmost third of America are contemptible and unworthy of inclusion in a ruling coalition. With today's moves, Obama has secured his left flank -- at least until the next petition drive."
Closing the Obama press conference, Chris Bowers of OpenLeft, one of the biggest proponents of the ChangeNow! Petition, explained the necessity for it in a nutshell: "Sure, Obama's come out hard for massive legislation against climate change, and he may add 20 million to the ranks of those with healthcare, and he's going to get us out of Iraq, and end torture, and was set to appoint the greenest guy in the whole House of Representatives to run Interior, but except for that, what's so progressive about Obama?"
