I said I thought Max Cleland would be Secretary of Veterans Affairs...
According to the Politico, it looks like it's going to be Eric Shinseki.
Now, I kinda like this because of Shinseki's past with the Bush Administration. I also like that we've got an Asian on the Cabinet.
According to Wikipedia, Shinseki was the first Asian American in U.S. history to be a four-star general, and the first to lead one of the five U.S. military services.
On February 25, 2003, four months before the end of his term as Chief of Staff of the Army, Shinseki told the Senate Armed Services Committee that he thought an occupying force of several hundred thousand men would be needed to stabilize postwar Iraq. He was pressed to provide a range by Senator Carl Levin (D-MI). Below is an excerpt from the exchange:
SEN. LEVIN: General Shinseki, could you give us some idea as to the magnitude of the Army's force requirement for an occupation of Iraq following a successful completion of the war?
GEN. SHINSEKI: In specific numbers, I would have to rely on combatant commanders' exact requirements. But I think --
SEN. LEVIN: How about a range?
GEN. SHINSEKI: I would say that what's been mobilized to this point -- something on the order of several hundred thousand soldiers are probably, you know, a figure that would be required. We're talking about post-hostilities control over a piece of geography that's fairly significant, with the kinds of ethnic tensions that could lead to other problems. And so it takes a significant ground-force presence.
In a public rebuke to Shinseki, Rumsfeld and his deputy, Paul Wolfowitz, called Shinseki's estimate "far off the mark" and "wildly off the mark". Wolfowitz said it would be "hard to believe" more troops would be required for post-war Iraq than to remove Saddam Hussein from power.
In my memory, this exchange got him fired. Wikipedia disagrees.
But back to my original post, Tammy Duckworth, my own early favorite isn't going to be there. Is she going to be Senator Duckworth??
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