Thread: The Obamanation
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Old 01-19-2009, 06:54 PM   #2
classicman
barely disguised asshole, keeper of all that is holy.
 
Join Date: Nov 2007
Posts: 23,401
Neat chart on that site merc.
Here is the text for the lazy peeps... (like me)
Quote:
But it’s not just the faces that are changing at 1600 Pennsylvania Ave. The Obama-led White House may be more crowded: So much time are staffers expected to be spending at the White House that Obama officials are already exploring ways in which their families can regularly visit them.

Grassroots campaign rhetoric aside, Mr Obama is likely to take a top down approach to implementing a more grueling schedule for his team. Mr Bush was usually in bed by 10pm and only rarely accepted invitations to dinner outside of the White House, but Mr Obama is a regular night bird. His staff will have to get used to a diet of evening meetings as well as the usual murderously early morning start. And Sunday may turn into a working day as well. Unlike Mr Bush, who had six weekly intelligence briefings a week, Mr Obama has been receiving seven.

More broadly, Washington’s power will switch from conservative to liberal and become younger. Many of the incoming 3,300 presidential appointees will be in their twenties or thirties and hail from Ivy League universities.

And unlike the Bush crowd’s southern tilt, many of Obama’s team will be from America’s derided ‘elite’ east or west coasts. The same may apply to the hundreds of students or young postgraduates filling the much coveted internships across the administration. Under Mr Bush, many interns were fervent Christians from Regent University and Liberty University in Virginia, in spite of those institutions’ relatively less than top-flight academic reputations.

But commentators sometimes also overstate the effects of a change of administration on DC culture. In practice, Washington has always been – and is likely to remain – a town of “Beltway insiders” who share a common addiction to politics and government.

Many of the incoming crowd, including Hillary Clinton, Tom Daschle, and Eric Holder were already living in Washington. And the outgoing Bush brigade isn’t likely to be leaving town in a hurry. America’s capital presents many tempting think tank sinecures and lobby group partnerships.

Not for nothing is it called the revolving door.
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