The presidential transition process
G. Calvin Mackenzie holds an endowed chair as The Goldfarb Family Distinguished Professor of Government at Colby College. He is among the county’s leading experts on the presidential transition process, literally writing the book on it, Leadership in Jeopardy: The Fraying of the Presidential Appointments System, Guidebook for the Senior Executive Service, and both editions of The Presidential Appointee’s Handbook. From 2000-2003, Professor Mackenzie was Senior Advisor to the Presidential Appointee Initiative in Washington while serving as Visiting Fellow at the Brookings Institution.
In additon to all that, Professor Mackenzie was my favorite professor from my days a mediocre student at Colby College in the late 1980s. Professor Mackenzie was an outstanding professor and it was great to reconnect with him and hear his insights into what goes on behind the scenes of the presidential transition.
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November 9, 2008 11:22 pm 
AMERICA’S RACIAL POLITICS
We’ve all heard the old saw that people should never discuss politics or religion because either topic evokes passionate responses and the discussion will end up in a donnybrook. Unfortunately, they just happen to be two of the most interesting topics to debate.
There’s another topic on America’s plate nowadays which qualifies for the same warning even though it, like politics and religion, is uppermost in the minds of millions of people, is equally capable of stirring up passion, and is equally volatile. That topic is race and racial politics.
Many of us claim to be oblivious of someone’s race and assert we never even notice if a fellow worker or neighbor or candidate for public office is white, black, yellow, a blend of all three, or a combination of two races, such as Barack Obama.
I would have to guess such people are either blind or liars.
Of course, a person’s race should never be the determining factor in how we regard them, or whether we vote for them. The Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr.’s remonstrance that the content of an individual’s character rather than the color of one’s skin should guide our thinking. That’s fair enough as long as that message is applied equally without prejudice and that it encompasses all races.
However, in the presidential election campaign, the question or, more precisely, the relevance of race, took center stage, not because the issue was raised by whites but because it was raised as a focal point by the half-black candidate, Obama.
On the one hand, it’s to his credit that he never blatantly appealed to black voters. …
(Read the rest of this article @ http://genelalor.com/.)
THE STEALTH ISSUE: REPARATIONS PART THREE
With all his talk about utilizing executive orders starting eleven weeks from now to reverse Bush policies, Obama hasn’t mentioned slavery reparations.
Now, it’s true that there is no Bush policy on reparations, which is not to say the issue is not on Obama’s mind, and on the minds of such people as Rep. John Conyers (D. MI) and Rev. Louis Farrakhan, as well as on the minds of millions of disenfranchised blacks who voted for Obama.
(See Parts One and Two of this series.)
Reparations can be considered as a prime goal in Washington but a goal that won’t be advocated until the electorate is softened up with a slew of other radical initiatives designed to convince the citizenry that government is in good hands, finally, and, like Big Brother, it knows best.
No doubt the hidden machinations are well underway to implement reparations but, to the dismay of Conyers but as per Obama’s and Farrakhan’s suggestions, it may not take the form of massive financial handouts to blacks. Most monies will be funneled into “social programs” and inner-city rehabilitation which will indirectly accomplish the aim of compensating poor blacks who are poor precisely because of the institution of slavery, which America abolished almost a century and a half ago.
That scheme may or may not blunt the plans of those who adamantly oppose any form of reparations, and that opposition is formidable.
Google “reparations” and over five million links will pop up, some endorsing the idea but most vociferously condemning it.
David Horowitz’ newspaper advertisement of some seven years ago is at once one of the most articulate writings opposing reparations, and one of the least read.
The ad, which Horowitz attempted to publish in thousands of college newspapers across the country, was largely quashed out of fears of retaliation and those relatively few papers with the gumption to publish it were violently attacked.
(Remember the vicious campaign conducted against the State of Arizona when it delayed instituting a Martin Luther King, Jr. holiday?)
That ad, titled “Ten Reasons Why Reparations for Blacks Is a Bad Idea for Blacks–and Racist Too!” can be read in its entirety here: http://www.adversity.net/reparations/anti_reparations_ad.htm.
Horowitz examines the inequity…
(Read the rest of this article at http://genelalor.com/.)
wow guys, you got a whole world of crazy commenting up there…
[...] the book on the presidential transition process. I loved him as a professor and interviewed him the first Sunday following the election. Obama has now appointed Volker as tax simplification tzar. Why didn’t Bush think of that? I [...]