Welcome to Left Out, reality-based independent radio on WRCT 88.3FM, and on the worldwide web at leftout.info. Left Out discusses the news from a perspective left out of the mainstream media. Left Out is co-hosted by Bob Harper and Danny Sleator. Today's program is produced by Deren Guler.
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Well, it's over. Or almost, at any rate. Obama has won the Presidency, though the Missouri results are still unresolved. With Begich overtaking Stevens in Alaska, it remains to resolve the breathtakingly close Franken-Coleman race in Minnesota (separated by 205 votes out of near 3 million), and the runoff in Georgia to decide on whether Chambliss is to be thrown onto the pyre of GOP ex-politicians.
Obama is carefully assembling his team of advisors and cabinet officials, with few decisions made yet, but many rumors. It seems that the change we can believe in is a return of Clintonism, with John Podesta managing the transition, Rahm Emanuel having been named Chief of Staff, and clear indications that even Hilary Clinton herself may join. Today former Senator Tom Dashle of South Dakota was named head of Health and Human Services. (Some speculate that Howard Dean will be named Surgeon General.) And, most importantly, there are strong hints that the new Attorney General will be former Clinton Justice Department staffer, Eric Holder.
Those of us in the Democratic wing of the Democratic Party were disappointed with this week's decision to retain Joseph Lieberman as Chairman of the Senate Homeland Security Committee, despite Lieberman's despicable tactics in supporting John McCain's candidacy for President. The lesson, it seems, is that the inside game of the Senate is not what we might wish it to be---there is, in truth, rather little separating Democrats from Republicans.
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