I can't help it.

From today's L.A. Times comes this quote:

"There's so much Obama hero worship, we're having to walk this line where we can't directly criticize him," he said. "But we are expressing concern."

And what is this person so concerned about?

Antiwar groups and other liberal activists are increasingly concerned at signs that Barack Obama's national security team will be dominated by appointees who favored the Iraq invasion and hold hawkish views on other important foreign policy issues.

The activists are uneasy not only about signs that both Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.) and Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates could be in the Obama Cabinet, but at reports suggesting that several other short-list candidates for top security posts backed the decision to go to war.

You mean, gasp, Obama might not actually pull troops out of Iraq at the rate he promised during the campaign? You mean that Obama might not have actually meant what he said during the campaign? Noooo.......You mean, that. . .Obama might just be . . . a politician? NNOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

In other news comes word that, "President-elect Barack Obama promised the voters change but has started his Cabinet selection process by naming several Washington insiders to top posts." I do find it amusing that Eric Holder (U.S. Attorney for D.C. under President Clinton), Rahm Emanuel (Senior Advisor to President Clinton), and Hillary Clinton are three early names to come out in an Obama Cabinet. It's like the missing third Clinton term Democrats have been waiting for. I will say that if we do get a third Clinton term, I hope its the foreign policy/economic version (the era of big government is over and all that) and not the social policy side- although, I guess the pick of Tom Daschle as HHS tempers my hope about that. According to the above article, Daschle's criticism of Clinton's attempt at health care reform in his first term is that it went into too much detail. Yes, that's exactly what we don't need- details.

Change you can believe in.

Also, I would be remiss if I didn't mention the elevation of Rep. Henry Waxman to the chairmanship of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, dethroning John Dingell, who had been the top Democrat on that Committee for 28 years. Basically, this is all about energy and the environment and how Congressional Democrats have thrown themselves down in front of the altar of Environment. With Waxman and Rep. Ed Markey in positions of leadership on climate change, and Sen. Boxer chairing the Senate Environment Committee, the next two years will be sure to feature prostrate Democrats chanting the mantra "Green, Green, Green" at the expense of the american public. Obama has already promised the raised electricity bills, by shutting down coal plants and requiring increases in expensive renewable projects- all at government say-so, without looking into whether or not it makes economic sense to do so. A co-worker of mine has a rote statement- Why quibble with -insert issue- when you can save the planet. For example, the North American Electric Reliability Corp. issued a report that noted “We are concerned that, when viewed from a continent-wide perspective, current climate initiatives do not adequately address key reliability objectives, particularly the need for a strong and robust transmission system.” In other words, since renewable energy, like wind and solar, are intermittent, they cannot be relied upon to provide a reliable energy service; and if the U.S. starts requiring a certain percentage of power to come from these unreliable sources, we're likely to see failures across the energy grid. Basically, we are exchanging cheap, reliable, baseload power for expensive, unreliable, intermittent power. . .what a victory for American ratepayers.

I can only imagine the mischief that is to result over the next 2 years with energy and environmental issues being handled by High Priests of Environment.