Obama Admits he Looks to Washington for his Brand of Change

Do you think the Kool-Aid drinkers feel the slightest bit of betrayal yet?

From today's news conference, we see Obama looks to Washington insiders to bring about change. WOW! It's so obvious, and something tells me they still won't get what Obama is all about.

Q And finally, you were talking about changing Washington. Your campaign was that. Paul Volcker has been around a long time. Tom --

PRESIDENT-ELECT OBAMA: Paul, Paul, I think that's an insult there. (Cross talk.)
(Chuckles.)

Q He's very highly respected, I want to add -- very highly -- very wise man. But --
PAUL VOLCKER: I haven't been in Washington for a while. (Chuckles.)

Q But sir, you talked about John McCain was going to come back to Washington if he won, and it would just move people into different chairs. You've got Tom Daschle, Hillary Clinton, Bob Gates --
PRESIDENT-ELECT OBAMA: Wait, wait, wait, wait. Hold on! Hold on!
Q -- we hear, anyway. We hear. So --

PRESIDENT-ELECT OBAMA: You hear that.

Q Right.

PRESIDENT-ELECT OBAMA: So the -- first of all, that's not the topic. We're not talking about my Cabinet, because I haven't made those appointments yet. And I'm happy --

Q So can we talk about Paul Volcker? He's been around a long time. So it's -- he's somebody who knows the ways of Washington. But what do you say -- you know, say to your supporters who were looking for change?

PRESIDENT-ELECT OBAMA: Actually, Paul Volcker hasn't been Washington for quite some time, and that's part of the reason he can provide a -- a fresh perspective.
Austan Goolsbee, from my -- my understanding, you've never worked in Washington?

AUSTAN GOOLSBEE: Yeah. I've been on vacation --

Q So he was chairman of the Fed.

PRESIDENT-ELECT OBAMA: This is about a -- this is -- this -- this -- this is about as fresh a face as you can get. (Chuckles.) Although -- well, that's all right. (Laughter.)
Look, let me take the questions in turn.

Number one, with respect to the details of the economic plan, as I've said before, we are going to be working over the next several months to put those details together. I've described for you the framework within which we are going to put that -- that legislation forward. We're going to have a strong stimulus, a(n) economic recovery plan that is designed to put people back to work. That's priority number one.

It is going to be large enough to jump-start the economy. That is what I talked about on Monday.

On Tuesday, I talked about the fact that we are going to have to pare back on programs that do not work. And I -- I think would hardly be expected to provide you a detailed list now; that's why I have Peter Orszag, our budget director, who's going to be going through that budget page by page, line by line. And the expectation is, is that we will identify those programs that are not working, make sure that those are eliminated, and put money into programs that do work, around things like health care modernization, making sure that we've got the first-class schools that our kids need in order to compete in the 21st century, start putting a down payment on a new energy economy.

When it comes to the people that we've pulled together -- because I know this has been sort of conventional wisdom floating around Washington -- that, well, you know, there's a recycling of people who were in the Clinton administration, although Paul dates before that, the last Democratic administration that we had was the Clinton administration. And so it would be surprising if I selected a Treasury secretary who had had no connection with the last Democratic administration because that would mean that the person had no experience in Washington whatsoever. And I suspect that you would be troubled and the American people would be troubled if I selected a Treasury secretary or a chairman of the National Economic Council at one of the most critical economic times in our history who had no experience in government whatsoever.