As the Bush gang moves out and the new administration moves in, there is the pressing issue of how now do we categorize the Bush dogs of the Democratic party?  There is always the time-tested guideline "if it looks like, smells like, tastes like, then..." And is this the guideline to judge the President-Elect? Clearly his paramount concern is to occupy the center-right, regardless of the necessary policies this country in crisis requires. This is pretty much the same political territory that our current crop of Bush dogs occupy and certainly many of the certifiable worst, right-leaning, Bush-excusing in Congress and elsewhere have been recruited for his DLC-heavy right-leaning administration. Even on the matter of the stimulus, Obama and his economic team are on the right of the Democratic party with their new trickle-down stimulus proposals. His latest appointments include  Sanjay Gupta who has proved his mainstream bonafides by his gratuitous and specious attacks on Michael Moore's "Sicko". John Brennan, the outspoken torture apologist has made his way back into the administration and Admiral Blair has apparently a sordid history of defending and promoting the blood-soaked hands of the Indonesian military in its massacring the East Timorese (described here: http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/world/2009/0110/1231515470074.html  as follows)

"Congress cut off ties to the Indonesian military in 1999 after paramilitary groups backed by the military and supported by the US had killed more than 200,000 people in East Timor over a period of 20 years. Admiral Blair, who was US Pacific Command chief, told the Senate armed services committee in March 1999 that the Indonesian military had played "a difficult but generally positive role" in East Timor.

The following month, he met Gen Wiranto, the Indonesian military commander, offering his support for a restoration of US relations while groups backed by the general rampaged through East Timor, attacking a church and executing dozens of civilians."

Now we also hear from the Black Agenda report about Obama's basketball partner who is to become Secretary of Education, Arne Duncan. Please read what they say about this truly execrable choice:

http://www.blackagendareport.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=944&Itemid=1

Let me quote the beginning of the article:

Did Barack Obama Just Appoint An Underqualified Stooge and Privatizer Secretary of  Education?

 

"The short answer seems to be "yes."  Before being appointed CEO of the Chicago Public Schools, Arne Duncan never saw the inside of a classroom as a teacher.  This is probably a good thing, since Duncan does not possess the academic qualifications to be even a substitute teacher.  Worse still, Duncan's idea of improving inner-city schools in Chicago is handing them over to corporate-run charter schools or converting them to military academies.  This, says longtime Chicago educator and activist George Schmidt, is not the change we voted for"

It seems to me using the guidelines above that indeed Obama has become for the purposes of being Chief Executive a Bush dog.