Praying for a Civil War...

Since I don't pretend to be non-partisan, I'll readily cop to loving the heck all those stories about the Republicans going at each other's throats.

But I'm starting to get the distinct feeling that some in the News Media also want a war between the Obama and the left-wing of the Democratic Party.

Look at some of the news stories that have cropped up in the last 24-48 Hours:


Huffington Post: Obama Considering The 'Original Lieberman' For Post?

The Hill reports that President-elect Obama is "considering Reps. Collin Peterson (D-Minn.) and Stephanie Herseth Sandlin (D-S.D.) for the USDA post. His transition team declined to comment on Cabinet speculation."

The news of Rep. Peterson's consideration has some Democratic activists up in arms. A DailyKos post titled "Who was Lieberman before Lieberman was Lieberman?" notes that Peterson has often been a thorn in the side of House Democrats, much like Joe Lieberman in the Senate.

Up in arms?  Really?  Over the USDA?

Maybe putting the "original Lieberman" at USDA is a great way to get him out of the House.

Murdoch St. Journal: Longtime Crisis Manager Pleases Wall Street, Mystifies Some Democrats

At a time of crisis unmatched since the Great Depression, President-elect Barack Obama has put his faith in one of the world's most experienced financial crisis managers -- a man popular with the Wall Street leaders he's consulted with closely over the years, but a mystery to many traditional Democratic constituencies.

"He is a great choice," said Merrill Lynch & Co. Chief Executive Officer John Thain, who was considered a candidate for Treasury secretary if Republican Sen. John McCain had been elected. "This will be one of the most important jobs in the new administration as we get through this crisis, and Tim understands markets and policies better than almost anyone."

But Andy Stern, president of the Service Employees International Union, said recently: "I always worry about somebody who has spent his whole life at the Federal Reserve....I just don't know him."

Never known Murdoch's papers to have an agenda or anything...

If Andy Stern was saying this about the nominee for Labor Secretary, it'd be an actual story. 

New York Magazine: MoveOn Meeting On The Upper West Side Gets Heated

At some 1,200 locations around the country last night, members of MoveOn.org gathered to celebrate Barack Obama's presidential victory and plan their new political strategy as part of a celebration called "Fired Up and Ready to Go!" Our man Tim Murphy attended a meeting on the Upper West Side populated by veteran activists and the younger types inspired by Obama to join the process. So can these two generations agree on an agenda? Not so much! "It was like a co-op tenants' meeting," said one attendee. "Everybody wants to hear themselves talk." Watch the video and get fired up.

Really, you want to go here? Really?  Now we're supposed to be concerned about the elites??

Huffington Post: Kinsley Warns Of Coming Blogopocalypse

But many readers may be reaching the point with blogs and websites that I reached long ago with the Sunday New York Times Magazine--actively hoping there isn't anything interesting in there because then I'll have to take the time to read it.

When you need column inches to fill, why not yet another story about the schism between the Traditional Mainstream Media and the Blogosphere.

Anyone noticing yet how many of these stories link back to the Huffington Post?  No one's ever accused them of being right wing, yet here they are fanning the flames of B.S. stories.

Here's a twofer.  A Huffington Post article called Dem Foreign Policy Experts Fear Clinton Team, really leads to a Washington Independent story called: Will Clinton Fill State Dept. With Loyalists?

The dispute is only partly ideological in nature. While the coterie of foreign-policy thinkers around Obama have been more liberal, in an aggregate sense — on issues like Iraq and negotiations with America’s adversaries — the Obama loyalists question the boldness of the Clintonites. They fear that Obama’s apparent embrace of Clinton represents an acquiescence to the conventional Democratic foreign-policy approaches that they once derided as courting disaster. Some wonder whether a Clinton-run State Dept. will hire progressive Obama partisans after an acrimonious primary.

Ummm, Barack Obama's still going to be the President, right? I mean he's not abdicating his Constitutional Authority, right? Hillary Clinton, ultimately, will be reporting to him, right??

And of course, the Politico: 5 on the outs in Cabinet shuffle

The new administration still has some major posts to fill, including heads for the departments of Defense, Housing and Urban Development, Transportation, Labor and Energy, not to mention the Environmental Protection Agency. But a number of the biggest prizes seem to have already been won, and a handful of serious contenders already been passed over in the speed-dating game that is the Obama transition.

Here's a look at five major players and the jobs they have apparently not been given:

Watch out progressives, chances are your favorite person won't be getting the job you want them to get (if they even want it).  There were what? Five people (Kerry, Richardson, Holbrooke, Susan RIce and Gregory Craig) all rumored to be going to State? Someone was walking away unhappy in all this.

And my new favorite (also Politico): White House political office will remain...

President-elect Barack Obama has answered bipartisan calls for the disbandment of the White House office central to the Karl Rove-style politics the Democrat condemned as a candidate. The office stays.

Funny, between ending the War and the implosion of the Economy I don't remember this being one of my big issues during the campaign, or even coming up in the Blogosphere. Plus, the problem wasn't the Political Office's existence...it was the fact that Bush and Team made sure the Political Office was put at the front of everything they did.

Ugh.