A Bumpy Start

Then there's Roland Burris. Obama made it clear that he didn't want the kindly but inconsequential Illinois politician to be his U.S. Senate replacement, because Burris had been chosen by the allegedly corrupt and recently arrested Gov. Rod Blagojevich. But Burris would not go quietly, and he has turned his week into a farce that obliterated what little majesty there might have been in the opening of the 111th Congress. More important, it looks like Democratic leaders (like "martial music," an oxymoron) are going to cave, and seat Burris anyway after several days of standing in the schoolhouse door.

They look dumb and Obama looks weak. Not a good pregame warmup.

Next, look at Obama's soon-to-be-announced nomination of Leon Panetta to head the CIA. To hear the spooks tell it, this is a little like asking Mr. Rogers to run an L.A. gang: he knows a neighborhood, just not that one. Obama & Co. wanted someone free of torture taint, but wound up with a guy who, as Bill Clinton's White House chief of staff, didn't have enough gumshoe in him to suss out the role of Monica Lewinsky.

The Democratic committee chairs were not amused, especially when they weren't consulted; they weren't because they would have objected, which they did after they got the news (as often happens) from Andrea Mitchell.

As payback for being ignored, Sen. Dianne Feinstein of California, who chairs the Intelligence Committee, became the first Democrat to support the seating of Roland Burris! Take that, Mr. President-elect.

Meanwhile, Democrats already are disagreeing over policy. I've talked to some on the Hill (devoted readers of Paul Krugman) who don't particularly like Obama's plan to put $300 billion worth of tax cuts into the big save-the-world stimulus package. I know some more conservative Democrats who are warning Sen. Harry Reid, their Senate leader, not to take up the one piece of legislation that labor unions really want, and which they think they have already paid for. It's the "card check" bill that would allow rank-and-file representation elections to be held in public, by signing cards, and not by secret ballot—which, long ago, the unions saw as the enlightened approach to union organizing rights. Reid has not relented, however, and privately is vowing to bring the matter to a vote in the Senate this spring.

Then there are the confirmation hearings. Most expect smooth sailing, but Democrats have made it clear that they will have some tough questions for one of the most pivotal of Obama's nominees, Treasury Secretary-designate Tim Geithner. I know him a bit; he is a calm, rational and self-possessed fellow. He is well liked by the masters-of-the-universe for whom he has worked, Larry Summers chief among them.

But Geithner has been on duty at the New York Fed during some of the most tumultuous and controversial times in the history of finance. Democrats on the Hill are just itching to go after someone, and Geithner may be handy after most of the Republicans skip town as fast as they can on Jan. 20.

George Bush has a seabed they can visit.

© 2009