Posted on Monday February 9th by Jebediah Reed | 80
Your brand spanking new Secretary of Transportation fielded questions on CNN yesterday.
Here’s what we learned:
- he won’t say whether he would have joined his party colleagues in voting against the House version of the bill. (So he would have. Awkward…)
- he “made some phone calls [and] talked to some people” trying to win Republican support in the House, but “obviously I wasn’t very persuasive.”
- he aims to drum up GOP votes for the conference version of the bill by, once again, making some phone calls and talking to some people.
- he’s inviting the heads of all the state DOTs to Washington for a powwow this week and is asking them each to bring a couple examples of “shovel ready” projects in their states.
- state DOTs get all the funds–instead of mayors–because they know how to make sure “the money is spent correctly.”
- “there aren’t going to be any boondoggles.”
This viewer’s takeaway: he has a very important job but seems like a guy who’s just keeping the chair warm. If you’re fortified with enough coffee, go ahead and try to give it a watch:
February 10th, 2009 at 10:41 am
LaHood is just another casualty of Obama’s frantic attempts to be bipartisan. LaHood still seems thoroughly wedded to the Republican party and he is totally unconvincing that he has any desire or ability to improve the current state of the economy or relations among the parties. (BTW: someone needs to give him some new talking points about his appointment – it seemed every time he was asked about his awkward position as a former Republican member of Congress serving under Obama all he could say was that it was a “privilege.” I stopped counting after the fifth time he lamely used the word.) If this interview is any indication of his service in this post, then I think we should have very low expectations.