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What Vetting Feels Like
 By Tom Shoop | Friday, September 05, 2008  |  09:03 AM

Ever wonder what it's like to be vetted for a Cabinet position? Former Clinton administration Labor Secretary Robert Reich describes the experience on his blog:

The process took well over a month, not including the Senate confirmation hearing. I don’t recall doing anything during that interval except responding to questions from the vetting team, the FBI, and oversight committee staffers, both Republican and Democrat.

Reich uses his experience to raise the issue of whether Sarah Palin was properly vetted before being named John McCain's running mate. I'm not entirely sure that's an apt comparison. If Palin had been subject to the full Cabinet-appointee treatment, the cat would've been out of the bag pretty early on McCain's choice of her. And I bet Al Gore didn't undergo the kind of treatment Reich did before Bill Clinton added him to the Democratic ticket in 1992. Of course, Gore had a much bigger longer record of public service than Palin did when he was named.

(Hat tip: Andrew Sullivan)



Comments


I'd like to see the parties better vet who they place on the TOP of the ticket. how does someone with major character and judgment issues make it? Smoke and mirrors, people. Or, as Biden once put it, "He's clean and articulate." What a compliment.

Misanthrope  | Monday, September 08, 2008 |  08:38 AM


You need a credibility tuneup if you tip your hat to Andrew Sullivan. Palin's vetting process is not fully known by anyone. Foolish opinions from the Obama supporter Sullivan is all I need to know about what the point of the article is. Why is confusing every controversial issue ever debated the continuous fallback position for the left? Palin is qualified because she is constitutionally eligble and McCain picked her. That she may not have been vetted to her opponents satisfaction is not relevant.

information, not obfuscation  | Saturday, September 06, 2008 |  10:27 PM


Sorry, I don't get it. It is not only a man's world but a woman's too. Whether it was a man or a women running for a high office, their children would be put through the same experiences. Women are not inherently less experienced or less qualified than men. Women can hold down a home, office and do it much more organized than a man. Women have been out of the kitchen for a long time and the time has come that the glass ceiling should be shattered black or white!

Women Rule Got It  | Saturday, September 06, 2008 |  03:27 PM


Your Freudian slip is showing C.Whereyoucomingfrom. I guess you meant to say "runs" not "ruins" for office. Although ruins might be an apt description of what Palin would do if elected. It's an good description of what she's done in Alaska.

bob  | Friday, September 05, 2008 |  04:18 PM


I think I understand. White men shouldn't have to undergo the same vetting as a woman. Women are inherently less experienced in the "man's world" and less qualified than men. Also, as the talking heads say, Palin should not have put her children through the scrutiny they will have to endure as she ruins for office (i.e., a woman's place is in the home). Got it.

C. Whereyourcomingfrom  | Friday, September 05, 2008 |  11:05 AM



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Government Executive Editor Tom Shoop takes a look at news and events affecting the federal bureaucracy, from the perspective of a longtime observer of government.

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