Shinseki Appointment: Moving to the Center is Good for the Left

Naming Gen. Eric Shinseki Secretary of Veteran's Affairs gave the US a double dose of goodness. Rumsfeld insisted that Shinseki's estimate that hundreds of thousands of troops would be needed to invade and hold Iraq was wrong. Shinseki told Congress Rumsfeld was full it. Rumsfeld, who never served in combat, like his draft-dodging bosses Bush (AWOL during air national guard service) and Cheney (five draft deferments during Viet Nam), publicly "pilloried and humiliated" Shinseki, a combat wounded veteran, for his honesty, and forced him to resign after 38 years of service.

Now, rubbing Rummy's and Cheney's noses in their Iraq crime, by rehabilitating Shinseki, is satisfying. Like Obama's other centrist appointments, it's good for the Left.

Shinseki's appointment is not only pragmatic; it's highly symbolic and extremely political. Shinseki is Japanese American, from Hawaii. He and Obama are faces of the "other" America--the America outside Oklahoma.

Obama supporters continue to complain about appointments he's making as "more of the same."

They're missing the point: the middle has to move way back to the real center, and coalesce before the US can make any headway toward a progressive future. People have to calm a get a grip on reality, instead of the propaganda being spread everywhere. Obama's choices are confidence building center-strengthening strategies that will create an eddy for the Left to regroup and start moving us in "right" direction.

Carl says, "DON'T BE DUMB. We don't need people who will reinvent the car; we need some people who now how to drive. Then we can make the left turn we that's out there waiting for us."