That may not be literally true, but you know what I mean. Vacuums are loud, noisy things that create order out of chaos, that clean up what is dirty, that bring peace (at least peace of mind) where there was none before. President-elect Obama is stepping in to vacuum the mess left by President Bush, even while the latter is still in office. And the world is reacting with untold speed.
I wrote before that I believe the transition should be quicker, the President-elect not left with so much time and so little authority, especially when the current President has finally realized that the manner in which he has governed is the basis for so much of what ails us today. President Bush has backed off, leaving the United States with a visionary captain with no authority, and an authorized captain without vision. He is trying to allow his successor to fill the vacuum with half-steps and consultations. He should just resign. But that would show too much judgement, too much good sense, too much “country first.”
And so President-elect Obama works quietly behind the scenes (emerging only to reassure the American public and the global community), prodding Congress, naming his team, proceeding about the business of building a working government in the shadows, ready to take office, to take the wheel, to plug in the vacuum on January 20 to clear out the cobwebs, clean up the dirt, and start making the country all shiny and clean, again. I just hope the mess isn’t too big.
Analysis: Europe nervy about Obama’s plans
Obama is committing a grave blunder in appointing rank amateurs like incompetent bureaucrats and bearded (or clean-shaven) professors from weed-infested campuses (who might not even be able to read and make sense of their monthly checking account statements) to man his economic management team and expect them to go about solving the present crisis in an expeditious manner. It is being overlooked that all these characters without a single exception were in deep slumber at the switch while the fire which is presently engulfing the global economic system was smoldering at their very feet, had no inkling of what was about to happen and gave not even a hint of a warning of the impending firestorm. If you are the owner of a bank, the vault of which has just been broken into and plundered, the smart thing for you to do is to turn for advice to a retired and truly repentant bank robber who would know what made the break-in possible in the first place and what should be done to guard against similar security failures in future. I have in mind the ex-CEOs of the failed home mortgage corporations and similar financial institutions in this regard. It would be unwise to ostracize such people totally by branding them as villains. Of course, they were the prime architects of the credit crisis tsunami which is presently ravaging the global financial system but they are the people who have the first-hand knowledge of which of their acts of commission and omission caused it and what steps should be taken and what regulations should be put in place to prevent such disasters from striking again. Of course, it is necessary to put up, for the sake of public facade, respectable and less-tainted faces as the Secretary of the Treasury and heads of other agencies in the federal government. Also, it would not be feasible, for political reasons, to appoint individuals who are perceived as primarily responsible for the on-going turmoil in the financial system and global economic meltdown to any positions visible to the public eye. But, at the same time, it is imperative that their wealth of experience, both positive and negative, is not allowed to go to waste but be harnessed and put to effective use by appointing them at least as whole-time advisors lest all the high-profile appointees should turn out to be just blind-folded babes in the wood and remain nothing more than just high-profile!