Smartocracy

Even the idiots in the Idiocracy realized that they needed the few smart ones to run the place.

Finally, the nation is going to be run by smart people. And it's not even that - smart pragmatic people.

There once was a time that the GOP could have been called the party of smart pragmatists. That would have been the Eisenhower administration.

Even Tricky Dick Nixon open relations with China and established the EPA because it was the pragmatic thing to do.

But the netroots are not happy.

For one thing, they are enraged that Holy Joe Lieberman's head isn't going to be displayed on a spike outside the White House gates:

Tell me again, Senate Democrats, about how denying Joe Lieberman his Senate Homeland Security and Government Oversight gavel was all about retribution? No, it was about incompetence, criminal neglect, poisoning of children, crony contracting, and worthless government services -- all of which were enabled by the independent Senator from Connecticut.

And they're not happy that there aren't more card-carrying liberals announced for Obama's administration.

I know everyone is obsessed with the "team of rivals" idea right now, but I feel incredibly frustrated. Even after two landslide elections in a row, are our only governing options as a nation either all right-wing Republicans, or a centrist mixture of Democrats and Republicans? Isn't there ever a point when we can get an actual Democratic administration? Also, why isn't there a single member of Obama's cabinet who will be advising him from the left? It seems to me as though there is a team of rivals, except for the left, which is left off the team entirely.

(Just curious, how does one get a liberal card to carry? I seem to have misplaced mine somewhere...)

Wow, you'd think we'd have at least a few weeks to revel in the schadenfreude before getting all depressed that we didn't elect Dennis Kucinich as president, and forming up the traditional liberal circular firing squad.

The problem here, as I see it, is that the last two incoming Democratic presidents did exactly what the netroots seem to think Obama should be doing: kicked out all the "old guard" of the DC establishment in favor of his own posse. Carter and Clinton did exactly that. And in two short years, they were struggling to get anything done in Washington, even with their own party in control of Congress, because all those old guard types were still part of the DC establishment and hated their guts.

Obama seems to be ready to do all those things he promised to do in his campaign - affordable health care, ending the war, putting the economy back on track. I don't recall slitting Lieberman's throat or telling Hillary to get stuffed to be included in his campaign promises.

Obama is a center-left pragmatic technocrat, and he's never tried to say otherwise. He's not a Kucinich or even a Russ Feingold. So quit with the pearl-clutching and defenestration, oh my fellow netroots. We all knew what we were getting going in to this election. Truth be told, for me it was a choice between "might work out OK" and "an unmitigated disaster".

The choice was easy. Bring on the smart people.