An Observation About Biden Appointees

This isn’t a particularly important point, but I think an interesting thing about Biden is that I cannot remember an administration where all of the usual top-line Cabinet appointees have been either underwhelming or outright terrible but where so many of the usual below-the-radar Cabinet appointees have played major public roles in the administration.

As for the former, Merrick Garland at AG is a complete 100% disaster of the first rate. Just a terrible appointee, especially with Doug Jones sitting right there with a record of prosecuting evil people and winning in Alabama, albeit under very specific circumstances. Lloyd Austin has been almost as bad. Usually the Secretary of Defense is in fact a major public face in an administration, but Austin hates the spotlight and is evidently so indifferent about his boss that he didn’t even bother informing him he was in the hospital after a major heart issue. I have nothing particularly against Antony Blinken, except to note that he’s just not very high profile compared to a lot of SOS. This is not Hillary Clinton or John Kerry or George Shultz here. As for Janet Yellen, I suspect the verdict remains out, but in terms of financial policy, Jerome Powell has received a lot more attention and will continue to do so as he decided when to finally lower interest rates.

On the other hand, Deb Haaland is the greatest Secretary of the Interior in our history, which I will explore in greater detail in a piece to be published soonish at a larger publication. Transportation is usually a completely anonymous position but Pete Buttigieg continues his rise in the Democratic Party as an outstanding communicator and fighter if nothing else from that role. Then you have Gina Raimondo at Commerce, who I do not like, but who has retained her relative prominence as Wall Street’s favorite Democrat through these years. Julie Su has never actually been confirmed as Secretary of Labor, but she has really driven Biden’s pro-labor policies in very positive ways. Now granted, a lot of the usual behind-the-scenes folks like Tom Vilsack and Miguel Cardona remain behind the scenes.

But it’s an interesting thing to note, if not overly important. Figured it might be worth a conversation.