DEL.ICIO.USUpdated: 5:23 p.m. March 11, 2009
Obama: ‘I love the South’
President says geography wasn’t a factor in his Cabinet choices
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Wednesday, March 11, 2009
WASHINGTON — There aren’t any Southerners in his cabinet, many of his policies are geared more toward big cities than rural areas, and he hasn’t spent too much time south of the Mason-Dixon line.
But that doesn’t mean President Barack Obama doesn’t like us, y’all.
Gary Fabiano/Pool via Bloomberg News
Only two Southerners are in the president’s Cabinet and senior staff.
“I love the South,” Obama said in an interview Wednesday with the Atlanta Journal-Constitution and a small group of reporters from other newspapers at the White House.
Asked why his cabinet and senior staff at last count includes seven Midwesterners, five Northerners, six Westerners and only two Southerners so far — namely spokesman and Alabama native Robert Gibbs and EPA administrator and New Orleans native Lisa Jackson — Obama acknowledged he didn’t exactly keep geography in mind when he was looking for his top advisers.
“I’ve got to admit that we have thought a lot about finding the very best people for the jobs, and haven’t been thinking with great intensity about regionalism,” said the president, who of course hails from Hawaii and Chicago.
“Because partly — except for food and sports teams and the weather — we’re one country,” he said. “And I think people are so mobile these days that I tend to think of ourselves as all just Americans.”
Certainly when it comes to job applicants he’s not holding it against anybody if they speak with a Southern drawl, Obama added.
“If you’ve got some great Southerners who want to work for us, please let me know,” he said. “Because we’re always open.”
In an hour-long session, Obama also touched on everything from food safety and the salmonella outbreak that originated in at a Georgia peanut plant to the economy and immigration issues. Some excerpts:
ON FOOD SAFETY
“I’ve directed both the Department of Agriculture and Health and Human Services to work to come up with a plan so that a lot of these different agencies that have some jurisdiction over food safety are integrated in a much more effective way and things aren’t falling through the cracks,” he said. “There’s a lot of work to be done in working on the front-end with food producers so that there are better warning signals of potential problems than we have right now. “We also need to be able to trace sources of food contamination much more quickly than we’re doing right now,” Obama added. “Technology can be helpful but the key is actually reorganizing the agencies that are responsible so they’re working more in concert than they are right now.”
Obama also hinted at a pending reorganization at the federal Food and Drug Administration that would not only tighten up food safety regulation but also give the FDA more power to regulate the tobacco industry.
“We’re probably going to have an announcement on this fairly soon, so I don’t want to step on my own story,” Obama said. “But I do think that the FDA has an important role to play on an issue that obviously has an enormous impact on the health of the American people. That’s all you’re going to get out of me right now.”
ON THE ECONOMY
Obama said he reads a sampling of letters the White House gets each day from people who are losing their houses, their jobs and generally suffering through the recession.
“Some of them are just heartbreaking,” he said.
“Everything we’re doing is focused on not only pulling this economy out of what is the worst recession since the Great Depression, but also looking at ways we can set a foundation and long-term growth,” he said.
But that doesn’t mean he can’t also help pave the road for America’s economic future, he added.
“The days of growing the economy through an overheated housing market or through people running up exorbitant credit card bills is over,” Obama said. “We’ve got to put our growth model on a different footing,” he said. “And that means that we’ve got to deal with our healthcare system and reduce costs for families and businesses and governments,” he said. “It means we have to think through our energy policy so that we’re not so badly dependent on foreign oil. And it means we have to improve our education system so that our young people are equipped with the skills and knowledge they’re going to need to get jobs in the future.”
ON COMMUNICATING WITH THE AMERICAN PEOPLE
Asked if he thought he had done a good enough job explaining the economic crisis to the American public and instilling confidence in the economy, Obama said, “I think you can always do a better job.”
But “I think people are getting the message that slowly, surely we are making progress on these fronts,” he added.
Obama said he thought the White House could do a better job of explaining the banking meltdown and the importance of keeping credit flowing.
“On that particular issue I think we’ve got to explain to the American people why it so important to get credit flowing to businesses and consumers. I’ll be making statements about this tomorrow, the next day in my radio addresses.
“The main message I’m going to be delivering is that it’s going to take some time to get out of this deep hole we’re in, but we’re going to get out,” he said.
ON MEXICAN BORDER VIOLENCE AND IMMIGRATION ISSUES
Obama said he and other top officials have met with Mexico President Felipe Calderón and other top officials about finding ways to address increasing drug-related border violence and immigration issues.
“Our expectation is to have a comprehensive policy in place in the next few months … that will involve supporting Calderón and his efforts in partnership.
He said he’s also looking at ways to stop drug money and guns from going south from the United States to Mexico.
“It’s really a two-way situation,” he said. “The drugs are coming north, we’re sending funds and guns south, and as a consequence these (drug) cartels have gained extraordinary power.”
On immigration, Obama said that the meltdown of the U.S. economy and job opportunities “has slowed the flow” of illegal immigrants.
“But it remains a serious concern,” he said. “Our approach is to do some things administratively strengthen border security and to fix the legal immigration system - because a lot of the impetus toward illegal immigration involves a broken legal system. People want to reunify families and they don’t want to wait 10 years. I think we can make some progress on that front.”
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