Obama has nominated Republican Jim Leach as Chair of the National Endowment for the Humanities

[Robbien]

Back in his early career he was a staffer of Rumsfeld and shared an office with Cheney.

from
http://www.allgov.com/ViewNews/Chairman_of_the_National_Endowment_for_the_Humanities__Who_Is_Jim_Leach_90720

Leach has the dubious distinction of being a lead sponsor of the 1999 Gramm-Leach-Bliley Financial Services Modernization Act, which repealed those parts of the Glass-Steagall Act which had prohibited banks from offering investment, commercial banking, and insurance services.

. . .

Leach was named John L. Weinberg Visiting Professor of Public and International Affairs at the Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs at Princeton University, and serves on the board of several public companies and four non-profit organizations, including the Century Foundation, the Kettering Foundation, the Social Science Research Council, ProPublica, and the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. He is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations and formerly served as a trustee of Princeton University. On September 17, 2007, Leach was named as Interim Director of the Institute of Politics (IOP) at Harvard's Kennedy School of Government after former director Jeanne Shaheen left to pursue a U.S. Senate seat in New Hampshire.



-------------------

So another GOPer to join all the other GOPers/New Dems/DLCers and Blue Dogs which make up the entire Obama administration. Of course a token lonely Progressive was thrown in over at the Dept of Labor.

[xchrom]

1. why? nt

[Demeter]

2. And Yet Again, Why?

Maybe it gets the bastard out of the Senate? We don't need no stinking humanities, perhaps?

(shakes head sadly, goes offline)

[Robbien]

4. Payback. Leach endorsed Obama over McCain

So humanities is thrown on the trash heap in order to repay a political debt.

[babylonsister]

6. He founded the Congressional Humanities Caucus. You

don't consider that important? Jeeze, it's obvious you're just trying to stir up shit. Nice job. :eyes:

[Robbien]

9. He is of the Newt Gingrich mindset

of making sure government is shrunk and drowned in a bathtub. The Congressional Humanities Caucus has done everything in its power to make sure Humanities is taken off the table.

[babylonsister]

11. Not so fast...

Leach had more differences on ethical issues with several of his own party leaders than Democratic Speakers like Tip O'Neill and Tom Foley. In the wake of a 1996 Ethics Committee probe of then Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich, which cited the Speaker for providing false information under oath to a House committee, Leach broke ranks with tradition and voted against his party's nominee for Speaker in the subsequent Congress. In one of the few occasions in the 20th century when any party division was recorded on the initial leadership organizing votes on the House floor, he voted for the former Republican leader, Bob Michel, and received two votes himself, causing Leach to take a distant third in the contest for Speaker of the 105th Congress behind Gingrich and the Democratic nominee, Dick Gephardt.


And I'm done arguing with you. You are a number of knee-jerk libs around here that get themselves in a lather any time a rethug gets anywhere near this admin. Grow up.

[babylonsister]

3. On August 12, 2008, Leach broke party ranks to endorse Democrat Barack Obama ...

Yea, sounds like a real slouch.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jim_Leach

Leach served as the interim director of the Institute of Politics at the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University from September 17, 2007, to September 1, 2008, when Bill Purcell was appointed permanent director. Prior to joining the Princeton faculty, Leach served 30 years (1977-2007) as a Republican member of the United States House of Representatives, representing Iowa's 2nd congressional district (numbered as the 1st District from 1977 to 2003). In Congress, Leach chaired the House Committee on Banking and Financial Services (1995-2001) and was a senior member of the House Committee on International Relations, serving as Chair of the Committee’s Subcommittee on Asian and Pacific Affairs (2001-2006).<2> He also founded and served as co-chair of the Congressional Humanities Caucus.<1> He lost his 2006 re-election bid to Democrat Dave Loebsack of Mount Vernon, IA.

Leach authored legislation on a range of issues including:

* the creation of an international AIDS Trust Fund,
* debt relief for the world’s poorest countries,
* authorization of an International Monetary Fund quota increase,
* making the Peace Corps an independent federal agency,
* requiring the federal government to use soy ink,
* prohibiting Internet gambling,
* restraining federal employee growth, and
* redressing certain Holocaust asset losses.

snip//


On August 12, 2008, Leach broke party ranks to endorse Democrat Barack Obama over fellow Republican John McCain in the 2008 U.S. presidential election. He spoke at the 2008 Democratic National Convention in Denver, Colorado, on the night of August 25, 2008.<7> He was introduced by Senator Tom Harkin, a fellow Iowan.

On November 14 and 15, 2008, Leach and former Clinton Secretary of State Madeleine Albright served as emissaries for President-elect Obama at the international economic summit being held in Washington, D.C.<8>

On June 3, 2009, President Obama announced that he intended to nominate Leach as Chairman of the National Endowment for the Humanities.<9>

[Robbien]

7. Yes he founded the humanities caucus which has been doing a bang-up job

in making sure humanities were ignored and pushed into a closet.

The world AIDs programs is a disaster. Debt relief for the poor countries is almost non-existent. But one has to admit he sure has done wonders in pushing the IMF and privatization off on all poor countries of the world spreading poverty and grief where ever it goes.

[babylonsister]

10. Go read wiki about this guy and quit your complaining.

So what if he's a republican? Who gives a shit? He's proved himself more liberal during his career than many Dems.

Or keep complaining. You do it so well. Thankfully, no one who matters is listening, because they'd be laughing at you. And for all those assertions you're making without one link, prove they're all this guy's fault.

[rurallib]

13. I live in Leach's district

For Leach's 30 years in the House. Leach had a very checkered career. While he would get rave reviews for for his so called contrariness with his caucus, those flashes seldom came at real critical times. When Leach had a real chance to make a difference, he slunk back. He became known as the "catch and release" republican. When the votes were counted Leach would then be told if he could make a vote that would play well in his very liberal district.
So for 30 years we had representative who really did little in the House. After 30 years he was essentially a back-bencher. He would make fairly innocuous public statements and seldom take really firm stands.
I think one of the oddest moments of his career was in the summer of 2006 when the GOP decided to rush his anti-internet gambling bill to the floor after only 10 years of ignoring it. Leach was in a tough fight for his seat and this was supposed to make him look good. The bill was essentially a payoff for terrestrial gambling companies and pretty much ineffective.
I am so glad we now have Dave Loebsack.
Leach will probably be good in a spot that is mostly non-partisan and non stressful.

[barbiegeek]

19. I live in Leach's district too &..

When he got rezoned to the Iowa City area district he was never going to win. Iowa City is 98% Democratic, no Republican will ever win there. Heck a member of the Socialist party was on City Council 10 years ago.

[Faryn Balyncd]

24. You're right. And he was one of 6 Republicans in the House to vote against the Iraq war resolution.

Moreover, in 2005, Leach co-sponsored Barbara Lee's Resolution of Inquiry to investigate Bush administration communications with the U. K. related to the Downing Street memos. He was the only Republican to support Lee's resolution, which died in the House International Relations Committee by a 25-24-1 vote along party lines (with the exception of Leach and Ron Paul). Ron Paul, who was widely expected to vote for Lee's resolution in the committee, voted "present" after making a peculiar announcement before the committee vote in which he said he had not been intimidated into a "present" vote by the repeated threats of consequences if he voted "Yes", but that he was in fact voting "Present" because investigating the Bush administration's actions "wouldn't stop the war". (Actually, had Paul voted with Leach and the Democrats, Lee's resolution still would not have gotten out of committee, as that would have resulted in a 25-25 tie, and committee chair Henry Hyde could still kill it. But it was a rare glimpse into Republican back room intimidation, And it is interesting that the GOP leadership did not intimidate Leach.)

So Leach, rather than Ron Paul, has the record of being the most consistent Republican opponent of the Iraq war in Congress.

On domestic policy, while Leach does have the dishonor of sponsoring Gramm-Leach, he was generally of the near-extinct midwestern moderate Eisenhower Republican stripe (neither a neoconservation, paleoconservative, nor Ron Paul libertarian), and was a member of the near extinct moderate Republican Main Street Partnership.

Early in 2008, was briefly part of a bipartisan group including Susan Eisenhower, Chuck Hagel, Michael Bloomberg, John Danforth, Sam Nunn, Chuck Robb, Gary Hart, and Christine Whitman who spoke out in favor of a "Unity" candidate.

Later, along with Susan Eisenhower, he endorsed Obama.

[Buzz Clik]

5. Is he qualified? Does anything matter?

[cali]

8. let's balance this a bit.

Leach voted against the IWR. He was the only repub in the house to vote against the 2003 tax cuts. He's authored legislation for debt relief for poor countries. He's pro-choice. He opposed the withdrawal of the U.S. from the International Court of Justice. More pertinant to the position he's assuming, he founded the Congressional Humanities Caucus.

That surely doesn't excuse Graham Leach Bliley.

And there is certainly more than one progressive in the administration.

[Davis_X_Machina]

12. If you want reasonable Republicans...

...to cross the aisle, you have to make it worth the effort.

Reward good behavior...and you can eventually reduce the GOP to an impotent rump.

[winyanstaz]

14. Because obviously he couldn't find a qualified Democrat

once again?
Sorry but once again..I feel the left has been thrown under another bus. In the name of being "bi-partisan"...we now have a mostly right-wing and right-wing leaning administration in all but name.

[Divine Discontent]

16. because Obama, much like his change on Gay marriage from his early IL days to now, is showing a more

center/right tilt on many subjects...

barf.

[burning rain]

15. He'll probably be alright at NEH.

Leach is one of those deeply tedious fiscal conservative, social liberal types, but NHS is a place where his social liberal side will be the whole story. Leach likes to be seen as sophisticated, urbane, and intellectually respectable, so I very much doubt he'd act as a conservative there. I'm all about being a rapacious left-wing bastard, but I find it accentuates my bastardliness if I leaven it with feigned civility here and there. I'm sure Satan will forgive me if I pretend to be nice sometimes.

[Bluenorthwest]

17. The humanities actually need but socially liberal and fiscally liberal

support at this point. Without spending money, we get no culture. So the 'drown it in the bathtub' background of this guy is just another hole in the road for the future.
So many better, more qualified choices. Sad stuff, politics. This is the sort of decision that keeps us in the middle ages here in the US.
Barf.

[bertman]

20. I just got a message on my cell phone. It said:

"Tell burning rain the day I forgive him will be a cold day in Hell."

Caller i.d. said

B. E. Bub

:evilfrown:

[barbiegeek]

18. He endorsed & spoke at the Democratic Convention in Denver

Jim Leach spoke on Day 1 of the Democratic Convention. Leach-R was introduced by Sen. Harkin-D, both from Iowa, where Barack won the 1st Caucus for the nomination for President. Jim Leach spoke out at the convention about how the Republican Party was no longer recognizable to him or stood for his values. Leach was the 1st Republican at the Democratic Convention to speak endorsing Obama. President Eisenhower's Granddaughter-R spoke at the DNC Convention endorsing Barack too.

[Doctor_J]

21. Bringing on sane, qualified Repukes further marginalizes the Palin wing

:thumbsup:

[progressoid]

26. And, unfortunately moves us to the right.

[QC]

27. That suits a lot of people around here just fine. n/t

[Captain Hilts]

22. And he helped deregulate Savings and Loans. Headed a banking committee. nt

[QC]

23. I guess nobody at Goldman Sachs wanted the job. n/t

[tomp]

25. good one! nt