Who is Samuel Bodman? - democracyarsenal.org

November 17, 2008

Who is Samuel Bodman?
Posted by Shadi Hamid

Just a test for readers. See if you can figure out who this man is. And once you do - probably by Wikipedia-ing it - ask yourself how it's possible that this man, who one would expect to be rather important, is, as Jacob Weisberg put it on Saturday, "anonymous."

November 17, 2008 at 09:06 PM | Permalink

TrackBack

TrackBack URL for this entry:
http://www.typepad.com/services/trackback/6a00d83451c04d69e2010535f7a936970b

Listed below are links to weblogs that reference Who is Samuel Bodman? :

Comments

Pace Weisberg, Bodman could be a megawatt superstar of genius and competence and he'd still remain anonymous as Energy Sec'y. One reason is what Weisberg points out -- how the Bush Admin devalued the role of Cabinet Sec'ys through its political centralization of decision-making in the White House.

But another reason is the actual jurisdiction of the Dept of Energy, which isn't nearly as expansive as one might imagine from its title. Energy policy (and the increasingly closely-related climate policy) is actually scattered around the federal gov't. Frex, right now the major action is in Bureau of Land Mgmnt (Dept of Interior) and the midnight leasing of lands in the West, especially in the vicinity of national parks, much to the consternation of the National Park Service which was basically not consulted. And of course important stuff is (or should be) in EPA, frex the recent decision that EPA should be regulating CO2 emissions by energy producers. And DoD is the biggest government consumer, which is feeding into acquisition planning. Etc, etc. Of course, Cheney appropriated the whole issue area from the outset of Bush 43's first term. So Bodman (and his predecessors) have been pretty much irrelevant for anything other than the research Labs and the nuclear power portfolio, which has been at a stalemate for moving forward.

That's why there's so much talk about the creation of a White House Energy Council (like the NSC and Economic Council) to bring some strategic coherence to the mess, translate Obama's green energy economy plans into legislation and programs, make sure the international negotiations/cooperation fit with domestic initiatives, and drive implementation in a coordinated fashion. Unless in the process they give a broader mandate to the Dept of Energy, I'd expect Obama's appointment to remain similarly fairly anonymous since most of the action will be centered in the White House or in high-profile initiatives like at State or EPA.

Posted by: nadezhda | November 17, 2008 at 10:52 PM

This is a regular company. They supply cheapest mabinogi gold
I often visit the site. I bought mabinogi money.
buy mabinogi gold is my favorite thing.
mabinogi online gold I am happy to buy their gold.

Posted by: Cheap mabinogi gold | December 24, 2008 at 11:37 PM

When you have requiem gold, you will become strong. With requiem lant, you can upgrade and admire by others. You can use requiem money to start the journey of the world. So, do not hesitate, let us move to buy cheap requiem lant

Posted by: requiem online gold | January 07, 2009 at 04:17 AM

I get a lot of rohan crone and the rohan gold is very important for anyone who wants to play the net game. Most of the rohan online croneis the access to the net game. If you have the rohan online gold, you can make good use of them to enjoy yourself in the game.

Posted by: rohan money | January 20, 2009 at 12:52 AM

I hope i can get Sho Online Mun in low price,
Yesterday i bought Sho Mun for my friend.

Posted by: dd | March 06, 2009 at 12:16 AM

Playing online games can make much maplestory mesos. If you want your game level to up highly, you can come here. And you can use the maple story mesos do what you want to do in the online game.

Posted by: maplestory mesos | March 19, 2009 at 10:29 PM