That’s what the AP is reporting:
A senior administration official says that President Barack Obama’s likely third pick for Commerce secretary is former Washington Gov. Gary Locke.
Huh. Locke isn’t exactly a lot of folks’ favorite governor, though apart from his conventional approach to trade issues it’s hard to argue that he’s a bad choice for Commerce.
Washington is one of our nation’s most export dependent states, consistently ranking fourth overall in total exports behind California, Texas and New York, and first in exports per capita. And as our nation’s first Chinese-American governor Locke is uniquely positioned to bridge the cultural gap with one our most important trading partners.
I’d say this is a safe appointment for Obama, one that will generate little excitement and little controversy. Locke is honest, workmanlike, and socially progressive (by national standards) if politically cautious, and while I’d prefer a Commerce Secretary who might at least challenge the current orthodoxy on trade, given his tenure in the governor’s mansion I wouldn’t expect much leadership from him on these issues one way or the other.
Unless he’s got some tax or nanny issue I’m unaware of, this should be an easy confirmation.
UPDATE:
A reliable source has confirmed that Locke received the call from President Obama at 1:30PM Pacific this afternoon.
“I’d say this is a safe appointment for Obama, one that will generate little excitement and little controversy.”
This will be despite the attempts by the GOP screech monkeys on the air, in print and in Congress (and their local wannabes) to pull something out of their much-explored rectums.
Not me…I like Gary Locke.
That ought to scare you KLOWNS.
He was a lot more in touch and fiscally conservative than whatshername…the scarey gal who screwed things up big-time.
You know who I mean.
Anyway, Locke will be an ok choice.
Way better than Pay-to-Play Bill Richardson!
Nice choice. Good to see the best of Washington going to the other WA to serve.
Imagine how much grief Obama could have saved himself by picking Locke in the first place.
I doubt Gov. Locke has any vetting issues. The guy is honest to a fault. He still really is an Eagle Scout. Any issues really will be honest mistakes in his case.
So much for Locke as a “caretaker” County Executive once Sims is confirmed as HUD Deputy.
I agree fully with Goldy … Locke is a safe but appropriate choice for Commerce. He’s far too much of a free (but not necessarily fair) trader for me, but so too is Obama.
Funny ….
I had speculated about this before the Richardson and the Reprican nominations.
Gary Locke is a much better choice for this than he was for governor. The guy has leadership skills only eclipsed by those of our current governor … he really is a technocrat.
That said, Gary is quite smart and more than a bit of a technogeek. His knowledge of Chinese may serve us well in dealing with the corporatist communist colossal party .. that is the CCCP government of China.
Unlike the previous choices, finally, Locke reminds me a lot of the nodrama Obama crew. He gets things done in a quiet and effective way .. as long as no one expects him to be public leader.
And, and … Mona!!!!!
Imagine THAT TEAM … Mona and Michelle! Awesome! They could sell drivers licenses in Saudi Arabia and hamantoshin in Iran!
A meeting of that one’s cabinet spouses might outshine the cabinet itself. Steve Chu’s wife is a physicist, Secty Clinton’s hubbi is a former president, VP Biden’s SO is a pretty significant in education, etc etc.
Funniest thing I’ve seen today@6
Thanks for the laugh. I just about fell out of my seat SJ.
The pick may be brilliant. Given that China is our biggest creditor, and we are in big need of not having our loans called at the moment, Locke’s ethnicity and professional ties to China might be very helpful.
Puddy @ 7
Locke was a very effective leader and a good governor. You embarrass yourself with your comment. Your partisanship runs so deep that if you were drowning and a Democrat came to your rescue, you would decline help.
Chris@4:
He had political payback to deliver first. But he didn’t vet before he select.
Proud, if you’ve been paying attention (naaaaaah you haven’t) the only negative thing Puddy ever said about Locke was his 3.2 Billion Tax break to Boeing. Puddy said it was too much of a tax break. Puddy has much to say about Queen Gregoire.
Pay attention in the future and wipe the leftist shit stain from your forehead. So Proud, how does one get the leftist shit stain? Can you figger it out?
BTW now that GM and Chrysler went back for mo money are you gonna say Puddy was the first to call it back in December? You wouldn’t answer the question the first second third or fourth time Puddy asked it loquaciousness king. Naaaaaah Puddy doesn’t expect you to answer it now anyway. Too stupid to think.
@9 in defense of puddy
Gary Locke is and was a very competent technocrat. Gregoire may have similar skills. To call either one a political leader beggars the language. I challenge you to find any controversial issue where Gary or Chris has “led.”
As an Obamist this is my hope for That One. I know he is smart, knows a lot, and now I want to see him emerge as our leader. Big job for any ordinary person.
SJ@12: Gary was okay as a guvnur. His tax break to Boeing was way too big.
@10 Puddy Don’t Know it All.
I think he vetted very well, maybe too well. Obama has brought new standards to the process .. lets hope he manages to find highly qualified people who have not hired Salvadorian nannies or fialed to report business lunches at Ruth Chris.
If y’all is really interested in comparing vetting .. try holding up That One’s cabinet to the gomers appointed by 41 and 43. Can Puddy spell gonzo?
Puddy
Oh come on .. if Boeing had moved to Beijing, you would be the first to wag a claw!
SJ @ 12
Commerce doesn’t require a political leader as much as a highly competent technocrat who can get the people under him to rise to their tasks. In that regard, I think Locke is a leader and will do well at Commerce.
Puddy
You keep referring to some question that I have avoided. I don’t want to damage your ego, but I do not keep an archive of your posts. Moreover, and I must apologize for this, I don’t even read most of your posts. So, if I failed to answer a question you posed, please forgive me, I beg of you from the bottom of my heart. Oh, and by the way, I’m checking out now as other business calls. So, don’t think I’m dodging your all-important question.
They haven’t had to screech yet.
Obama picking people under federal investigations, tax cheats, etc. has so far done the job.
Funny. I suggested Lock on this site 11 days ago, when speculation was it might be gregoire.
Nothing like playing the race card.
Conflict of interest?
SJ he vetted too well?
Tax cheats out the wazoo!
proud leftist you are too funny. If I failed to answer a leftist question it would be paraded in every link.
Okay, I’ll start ignoring your tripe.
@ 11 Pubbydub said
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Why the hell would any sane person pay attention to a Pubby post? Pubby posts are exercises in dubious content topped with congealed brain matter, sauteed in lies.
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Marvin@20, I ignored proud’s racist comment. Typical leftist swill. Always looking at the skin or facial features while ignoring the character.
Marvin, our favrit moron surreal amerikkkan leadless douchy just appeared. leadless must have a multiple sybil mind to keep track of all his sock puppets.
Also, Pubbydub is the only person I know on this blog caught sock puppeting red handed!
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Yeah Goldy outed me, while he won’t out you. Why is that leadless douchy@25
Perhaps Pubbydub should change his name to “Pubbudy, Hey I’m another sock puppet…
Hmmm.. perhaps it is because I am not “leadless douchy”?
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Pubbydub swings and misses… as always.
Pubbydub has the intelligence of a sack of rocks, and the intellectual honesty of a Republican.
Sad, very very sad.
If only Goldy would tell the truth here…
Pubbydub, I invite Goldy to reveal whether or not I am your imagined boogieman “leadless douchy”.
All that is required is for you to start telling the truth.
Think you can handle that?
Too bad Puddy can’t get worked into a lather about the pedos and pervs in his own party the way he gets worked up about Dem tax cheats. I conclude that the one bothers him, the other doesn’t.
http://www.republicanoffenders.com/Pedophiles.html
Does nothing at that site bother Puddy? Nothing at all?
Factoid: Boeing airplanes are America’s #1 export.
Roger Rabbit Commentary: Or used to be, before shortsighted Boeing CEOs sent tens of thousands of Boeing jobs to China, and shortsighted Republican politicians let them do it.
How Utilities Rip You Off
“Oregon’s Portland General Electric collected nearly $900 million from 1997 to 2006 for federal and state taxes, but actually paid less than $1 million. Xcel Energy, which runs electric utilities in eight states, collected at least $723 million for taxes it will never pay.” — Mother Jones Magazine
Gee I thought according to right wingers taxes are collected “at gunpoint”.
So why are they busting a gut over tax breaks and being behind on taxes?
(Of course they’re completely silent about a true tax cheat like swift-boater Sam Wyly who makes the Dems look like total amateurs to the tune of 300 million bucks.)
Hilarious.
Not Supporting The Troops Dep’t
“Soldiers still waiting for tour bonuses
“WASHINGTON — The Pentagon has not started complying with a law requiring the payment of monthly bonuses … to soldiers forced to remain on active duty beyond their enlistment period, military officials said.
“Pentagon spokesman Bryan Whitman acknowledged the five-month delay in … paying the almost 13,000 soldiers currently under the Army’s stop-loss orders. …
“Congress added $72 million … for the bonuses … for the budget year that started Oct. 1. The money was to be paid after the Pentagon submitted a plan outlining how the payments would be made. But no plan has been provided, Rob Blumenthal, a spokesman for the Senate Appropriations Committee, said Friday.
“‘It is unacceptable that the Department (of Defense) has failed to construct a plan for issuing these payments,’ said Rep. John Murtha, D-Pa., who chairs the House Appropriations Subcommittee on Defense. …
“Paul Rieckhoff, executive director and founder of Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America, said the Pentagon is ‘dragging its feet’ on implementing the pay bonus.
“Since 2002, the military has relied on stop loss to keep its most skilled and experienced troops in the service … the number of soldiers on stop loss has risen to almost 13,000 in December 2008 … almost 10% of the total number of soldiers deployed in the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq ….”
(Quoted from USA Today under fair use.)
Roger Rabbit Commentary: Stop-loss was never used by Democratic presidents to keep soldiers in the military against their will after their enlistments expired. And Democrats sure as hell didn’t refuse to pay troops deployed to combat zones! These are Bush-era innovations, and they suck. For years, wingnut loudmouths told us we were “unpatriotic” if we didn’t “support the troops,” i.e., vote for warmongering rightwing politicians. WELL I’LL TELL YOU WHAT UNPATRIOTIC IS — NOT PAYING THE SOLDIERS IS UNPATRIOTIC!!! President Obama has been in office only a month and the Pentagon is still being run by a gang of Bush holdovers. The president should go in there with a meatax and clean out the whole nest of them! Then they’ll be free to join Glenn Beck’s Bubba Army and fight to overthrow the lawful elected government of the United States, so we can kill them with tanks and F-16s, and hang the survivors as traitors!*
* Just kidding! Ann Coulter gets big laughs for lines like this, so I’m trying it. I want to be a comedian, too!
Speaking of tax cheats, here’s an intriguing idea from Mother Jones magazine:
“Invade the Caymans”
“In 1983 just 10 percent of America’s corporate profits were funneled through places that charge little or no corporate income tax; today more than 25 percent of profits go through tax havens. The Obama administration could tell the Caymans — now fifth in the world in bank deposits — to repeal its bank secrecy laws or be invaded; since the island nation’s total armed forces consists of about 300 police officers, it shouldn’t be hard for technicians and auditors, accompanied by a few Marines, to fly in and seize all the records. Bermuda, which relies on the Royal Navy for its military, could be next, and so on. Long before we get to Switzerland and Luxembourg, their governments should have gotten the message.” [emphasis added]
Roger Rabbit Commentary: That’s right, you can be a liberal, a warmonger, and go after Republican tax cheaters all at once! I like this idea! I might even be willing to temporarily return to active duty to help carry it out! Especially if we get to shoot the tax cheats!!*
* Just kidding! See postscript in #36.
Excellent off topic post.
Excellent off topic post
Excellent off topic post
Excellent off topic post
Excellent off topic post
@33
To say that it was republicans that led to outsourcing of Boeing jobs is far to simple minded for you RR.
Why did Boeing move the Corporate HQ? Somewhere along the way, labor and management passed over the tilting point. Boeing started outsourcing “small” parts of it’s airplane manufacturing in the 90’s…
Labor costs, and having to provide jobs to countries with nationalized airlines didn’t help….
And now?
They are finding that losing control of the manufacturing process is not the cost savings that they once thought…
“Roger Rabbit Commentary: That’s right, you can be a liberal, a warmonger, and go after Republican tax cheaters all at once! I like this idea! I might even be willing to temporarily return to active duty to help carry it out! Especially if we get to shoot the tax cheats!!*
* Just kidding! See postscript in #36.”
ALL TAX CHEATS NEED TO BE IN JAIL AND THEIR PROPERTY SEIZED…
See we agree.
@43 Oh sure, Boeing workers making 50K or 60K a year will break the company! That’s too MUCH money!! Everyone knows that making 50K a year in Seattle makes you RICH!!! And OMG they also get HEALTH CARE and OMG they get PENSIONS!!! We can’t AFFORD that!! You can’t build airplanes if you have to PAY the workers!!! See, I can make noises like a CHEAP LABOR CONSERVATIVE too, except when I do it, I’m just fooling around.
P.S., Phil Condit moved the headquarters to Chicago so he wouldn’t have to see the strikers picketing his plants. He figured if they wanted to picket his office they’d have to get on buses and drive 2,000 miles. That’ll keep those damn strikers off his back!!!
38 et seq.: My comments are on topic, dolt! The topic of this blog is
REPUBLICANS SUCK
Steve@32, we’ve been down this road so many times. I’ve denounced them before so I don’t need to denounce them again. I’m not like clueless village idiot who displays his favrit sites on demand (command). So keep repeating the same tired rants and I’ll keep ignoring your silly tired rants.
See ya silly man…
@ 47, well, Pubbydub, steve doesn’t sock puppet himself, like some Pubbydub’s we all know!
The only way Pubbydub can have a conversation at his own low level is when he sock puppets himself!
Pubbydub and his sock puppet lying to each other!!
It’s Pubbydub world!
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I disagree. Locke was pretty much an 8 year loss for Washington State (we can be a little slow here) . Somebody should really check out his background and see to which government job he gave his wife’s brother and what the brother did while in office. Locke was worthless after 9-11, and there was no love lost during his time in office. Before he left he made it mandatory for all state agencies to become unionized. . . mmmmm. No choice there. I believe Locke was a total waste of time, and that we lost much more than we gained from him. We do not need someone who is a total waste’s of time in our new government, and we don’t need any more “good old boys”.
Julie
Neither you nor your husband have any political aspirations, correct? When you say Gary Locke was an 8-year loss for the state of Washington, could you, just by chance, produce any objective data by which to measure your statement? Julie, I understand that being a loser is hard to deal with, but the sooner you come to grips with who you are, the sooner you might find healing. Quit the lying, quit the delusions.
Love,
proud leftist
@ 50
You get right at that, Julie. We’ll wait for your report.
You mean he didn’t invade the wrong county, like Canada?
And you consider no loss of love a bad thing?
But you just said we didn’t lose any love during his governorship? You really need to be more consistent.
I think you meant he suggested all wingnut trolls be lobotomized.
We took care of that in the 2008 Nov. election. Remember?
“We took care of that in the 2008 Nov. election. Remember?”
“She” has no doubt blocked the memory.
Puddy! You can take off the dress now. Teal really isn’t your color.
All …
This thread looks like the wall in a stall in a men’s room at the mall.
proud leftist asked:
For someone who doesn’t answer other peoples questions, this is a big-time demand!
Something happened to FartyArt at 02/23/2009 at 11:09 pm. Something not good.
Well, well, well, this must really frost the righties. Too bad for you little bitches you can’t get your little whore Rossi elected. HE HE! I love it when a Dem from our state gets the national stage. It reminds America that here in Washington – we do it right. We don’t need no stinkin’ right wing ass suckers here.
@50
Amen.