Politico‘s Ben Smith is reporting that Fred Hochberg, an openly gay business leader who formerly worked under the Clinton Administration, will be appointed head of the Export-Import Bank. Hochberg was until recently the dean of the New School’s Milano management school.
Ed
While it’s great we now have a high-up homo, isn’t it a little optimistic and dishonest to say he’s been appointed to the Obama Cabinet? This isn’t a cabinet, or even a Cabinet-level position to my knowledge, or according to the White House web site:
http://www.whitehouse.gov/government/cabinet.html
or Wiki:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Cabinet
Michael W.
What a fucked up headline. I read it and thought he got Commerce Secretary.
Like Ed said, it doesn’t appear to be a cabinet level position. But it’s a very important job none-the-less and might be the highest an openly gay person has risen in any administration so far.
The cabinet still remains the next glass ceiling.
JP
Obama is just throwing the LGBT community a bone after the Warren fiasco. I, like I expect many other LGBT folks, sent an email to the transition team stating that I would like to see Fred Hochberg nominated for Secretary of Commerce. I intend to send them another email saying who disappointed I am with Obama so far.
Michael W.
@JP: The Latino community wants Bill Richardson to be replaced with one of them and they had a FAR BIGGER hand in Obama’s election than gays did (not to mention that 27% of gays voted for McCain, the highest ever for a Republican presidential candidate and the only demographic where Republicans gained from 2004).
emb
Are there no gay Latino business leaders? I think it’s lovely Barack is staffing second- and third-tier levels with homos. That’s where the work is done, certainly, rather than at Cabinet level, but the Cabinet positions are so nice and visible. It’s almost like WE are supposed to see they’re there, but no one else is. Almost closet-like, that is.
emb
And Michael W, I’m HORRIFIED by that 27% figure. If true, it’s really shameful, given the platform of the republican party, the vile policies of the republican candidates, and the horrific hair and makeup of sarah palin. Seriously, I hate to open up the whole conservative gay thing, but honestly: If a third our own folks can’t see that they’re voting aggressively against self interest, what can we do?
Michael W.
@emb: “Are there no gay Latino business leaders?”
I guess that would be a great way to kill two birds with one stone. While I’m sure there are some openly gay Latino business leaders, the question is how many of them are qualified to fill the job of being Commerce Secretary of the USA.
Also he can’t go picking one at random. The Latino community, like any other interest group, tends to push a select few candidates they want for the job. There’s already a list out there with people like Manny Diaz and none of them are openly gay.
Leland Frances
For those interested, you might want to print this for future reference, filed under “Cabinet/Cabinet Level Positions Gays Never Got” or “Under the Obama Bus/Back of the Obama Bus/Under the….”
PRESIDENT’S CABINET:
Secretary of State
Secretary of the Treasury
Secretary of Defense
Attorney General
Secretary of the Interior
Secretary of Agriculture
Secretary of Commerce
Secretary of Labor
Secretary of Health and Human Services
Secretary of Housing and Urban Development
Secretary of Transportation
Secretary of Energy
Secretary of Education
Secretary of Veterans Affairs
Secretary of Homeland Security
CABINET-LEVEL ADMINISTRATION OFFICES:
Vice President of the United States
White House Chief of Staff
Administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency
Director of the Office of Management and Budget
Director of the National Drug Control Policy
United States Trade Representative
United States Ambassador to the United Nations
Rigso
tokenism is stupid, if there is a qualified gay or latino for cabinet position, then so be it, if not, oh well. This will come down to how Obama handles the gay/latino communities in terms of policies (equal rights and immigration/education issues)
Michael W.
@Rigso: Tokenism is indeed stupid but sometimes in politics it’s unavoidable.
I like how Obama was able to buck the trend with his pick for HUD Secretary (among many other positions like Panetta at CIA), but sometimes you got to grease those wheels, baby.
Who knows, he still might surprise us.
BrianPrince
Hurrah… you’ve got your bone! It’s not a cabinet position, but it’s something (along with all the other queer leaders… who are may well be more queer than qualified)…
now quit bitching.
Mister C
You queens especially Ms Leland are really KILLING ME.
So some of the Gays felt FORCED to vote for Obama.So the feeling is I voted for this minority guy now he better make his entire cabinet GAY, GAY, GAY girls are really crazy.
You should have been like the other 27% percent of stupid Gays that voted for McCain who made it PLAIN AND SIMPLE their girl Hillary wasn’t getting in and they wouldn’t support Obama for WHATEVER reason. So the punk asses voted for McInsane/Stalin. And still lost out.
None of you were never this critical of Bill Clinton. I still wonder why???????? And this guy has not even taken office yet.
But here’s a suggestion be like Michael W who is deliriously a LOG CABIN QUEEN might I say the group has become short of funds $$$$ and vote Republican because they will come back hard on the RIGHT WING tip and will DO NOTHING for you and what will you do then surf on Queerty,Towerload,Slog and all the Blade blog publications so you can and bitch and cry?
BE FUCKING PATIENT…WILL YOU?
Bill Perdue
These appointments don’t mean squat.
They don’t mean that Obama is no longer a superstition driven bigot opposed to same sex marriage who validated Yes on 8’s disgusting victory by inviting Warren to speak. They don’t mean he’ll keep his promises any better than that other bigot Clinton. What they do mean is that people who voted for Obama wasted their votes on a hustler trained in politics by the Chicago Machine.
This is not news and it’s not important. In fact it goes a long way to confirm our analysis about the attitudes of the bigot and his party who some voted for without reservation. They just ended up giving us a rehash of Bush and Clinton.
What is important is that Obama appointed an open bigot, Tim Kaine, to run the DNC (as if Leah Daughtry wasn’t bad enough). He appointed a rabid racist, Lawrence Summers, who says the lives or working people in overexploited parts of the world are worthless to run his economic policies. And He appointed Hillary Clinton, a rabid pro zionist war hawk to run State. And that He’s retaining the war criminal Robert Gates to run the war department. And He pals around with other war criminals like Colon Powel and bigots like Sam Nunn.
These policy setting appointments and will determine the basic direction of His administration. In contrast Obama’s GLBT appointments are low level personnel appointments and the announcements concerning them are just so many crumbs tossed in our direction.
——————————
Mister C, you’re beginning to sound like some sort of liberal.
Eeeeeewwwweee.
WTF? Patience? You’ve got to be kidding. First Obama sabatoges our defense of same sex marriage rights and now he’s tossing us a few crumbs. And he postponed reapeal of Clintons bigoted bill DADT until the next elecion period, and that means it’s likely to be in place in until 2013. Unless he needs a lot of cannon fodder.
Get real, Mister C. If you want to talk to people who agree with you about patience first you’ll have to find some.