President-Elect Barack Obama will name another cabinet nominee tomorrow: Retired General Eric Shinseki to head the Department of Veterans' Affairs.

Shinseki was a vocal critic of the Neocons in the Bush Administration and is Obama's first Asian-American cabinet nominee.

Juan Cole calls the appointment "ironic."

"If Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz and [former undersecretary for defense Douglas J.] Feith had listened to Shinseki, there wouldn't be as many wounded veterans to take care of," Cole said. "I think this is a way of saying, 'Here was a career officer who had valuable insights who was shunted aside by arrogant civilians, and we're not going to make the same kind of mistakes.' "

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Digby has recommended this post. It is an interesting post in parts, but some of it is absurd to my eyes. Some particularly wrongheaded parts of it (as well as some of the interesting parts) follow:

Paul Krugman in his Times columns, his Times blog, and his latest book The Return of Depression Economics and the Crisis of 2008 (which Krugman will be discussing at the FDL Book Salon this afternoon at 2 pm EST), has devoted a great deal of attention to describing the lessons to be learned from FDR and the New Deal (both its successes and failures.) In particular, he has expounded on John Maynard Keynes' critiques thereof. In his last column, Krugman wrote:

The idea that tight fiscal policy when the economy is depressed actually reduces private investment isn’t just a hypothetical argument: it’s exactly what happened in two important episodes in history. The first took place in 1937, when Franklin Roosevelt mistakenly heeded the advice of his own era’s deficit worriers. He sharply reduced government spending, among other things cutting the Works Progress Administration in half, and also raised taxes. The result was a severe recession, and a steep fall in private investment.

This was Keynes' critique (annotated at the link) at the time:

President-Elect Barack Obama will name New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson as his Commerce Secretary tomorrow.

Why was John Kerry left out in the cold? Among the few high-level positions left for him is Secretary of Veterans affairs.

In my post below, I highlighted FDR's famous 1932 speech at Oglethorpe University. I choose to highlight portions of it again here:

No, our basic trouble was not an insufficiency of capital. It was an insufficient distribution of buying power coupled with an over-sufficient speculation in production. While wages rose in many of our industries, they did not as a whole rise proportionately to the reward to capital, and at the same time the purchasing power of other great groups of our population was permitted to shrink. We accumulated such a superabundance of capital that our great bankers were vying with each other, some of them employing questionable methods, in their efforts to lend this capital at home and abroad.

(Emphasis supplied.) Sound familiar? More . . .

On November 22, in his weekly radio address, President-Elect Obama said:

The news this week has only reinforced the fact that we are facing an economic crisis of historic proportions. Financial markets faced more turmoil. New home purchases in October were the lowest in half a century. 540,000 more jobless claims were filed last week, the highest in 18 years. And we now risk falling into a deflationary spiral that could increase our massive debt even further.

. . . I have already directed my economic team to come up with an Economic Recovery Plan that will mean 2.5 million more jobs by January of 2011 — a plan big enough to meet the challenges we face that I intend to sign soon after taking office. We'll be working out the details in the weeks ahead, but it will be a two-year, nationwide effort to jumpstart job creation in America and lay the foundation for a strong and growing economy. We'll put people back to work rebuilding our crumbling roads and bridges, modernizing schools that are failing our children, and building wind farms and solar panels; fuel-efficient cars and the alternative energy technologies that can free us from our dependence on foreign oil and keep our economy competitive in the years ahead.

[More . . .]

In answer to counterfactual assertions in the Media and from some bloggers like Matt Yglesias, Plutonium Page and John Issacs demonstrate that there is not a dime's worth of difference between the President-Elect and the Secretary of State designee on foreign policy. Indeed, President-Elect Obama explained:

Planned Parenthood President Cecile Richards lauds President-elect Obama's announcement naming Hillary Clinton as Secretary of State:

Senator Clinton understands that women's quality of life directly affects the major issues confronting the globe: national security, environmental sustainability, and global poverty.

In a speech that, by the standards of the Bush administration, sounds positively radical, Clinton addressed the Cairo Plus Five Forum at the Hague in 1999, saying,

"Women's reproductive health and empowerment are critical to a nation's sustainability and growth ... we now know that no nation can hope to succeed in the global economy of the 21st century if half of its people lack the opportunity and the right to make the most of their God-given potential. No nation can move forward when its women and children are trapped in endless cycles of poverty; when they have inadequate health care, poor access to family planning, limited education."

President Elect Obama is making his announcements. Hilllary, Eric Holder, Robert Gates, Janet Napolitano, Susan Rice, General James Jones.

Update: Hillary gave a great, short speech. Holder makes me nervous. Napolitano stresses securing the border. Susan Rice also wants to strengthen our security. Biden, who spoke after the nominees, was confident.

I think we did get a welcome change from the Bush Administration -- and in thinking about who these appointees would be had McCain been elected, I'll say we did okay with this team.

Questions: To Obama, "Would India be justified in going after terrorists on Pakistani soil?" No direct answer. Next question is about whether the appointees will be a clash of rivals. [More...]

Bump and Update: It's Offical. Hillary will fly to Chicago tomorrow to join Obama for his cabinet appointments announcement, including her own as Secretary of State. Congratulations, Hillary!

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CNN and other news organizations are reporting that President Elect Barack Obama will name Hillary Clinton as Secretary of State on Monday.

The New York Times reports on the lengthy negotiations between Team Obama and Bill Clinton and the 9 preconditions the former President had to meet. [More...]

Looseheadprop, a former federal prosecutor who writes at Firedoglake, makes a last-ditch effort to derail the nomination of Eric Holder for Attorney General.

I agree Obama should have picked someone different, but for for much different reasons -- his position on drug offenses, his Biden-like endorsement of draconian crime bills and his closeness to Obama (a weaker but still troublesome comparison can be made to Bush and Alberto Gonzales) but I think Obama is so beholden to Holder for his work on his campaign, from the Veep Selection Committee on down, that it's hopeless. He sailed through his 1997 confirmation hearing for Deputy Attorney General. As I wrote here and here, [More...]

He's having another one today, announcing that Paul Volcker (as Chair) and Austan Goolsbee will be part of a newly created Economic Recovery Advisory Board. Obviously these are respected names and the idea of an "Economic Recovery Advisory Board" is positively New Dealian. But, more than that, I think there is some good psychology to Obama trotting out every day to discuss the economy.

It sends a simple but powerful message - the light at the end of the tunnel is near - the nightmare years of the George W. Bush Presidency are almost over. It's a good message to send.

Speaking for me only