I found the following snippet relevant (via TWN).

According to some reports, Barack Obama seems to think that his intellectual, policy formulation and speechwriting skills are better than those around him -- or so goes that narrative in a recent New Yorker article by Ryan Lizza:

    Obama, who is not without an ego, regarded himself as just as gifted as his top strategists in the art and practice of politics. Patrick Gaspard, the campaign's political director, said that when, in early 2007, he interviewed for a job with Obama and Plouffe, Obama said that he liked being surrounded by people who expressed strong opinions, but he also said, "I think that I'm a better speechwriter than my speechwriters. I know more about policies on any particular issue than my policy directors. And I'll tell you right now that I'm gonna think I'm a better political director than my political director."

They actually want us to "concern troll" them so thy can gauge how the activist base, the mainstream media and the political establishment will react. It's not an act of "disloyalty" or a sign of hysteria to respond to these things any more than it is an act of disloyalty to respond to a poll or write a letter to the editor. It's the point.

Relax. This is a normal part of politics.

I think it would be a constructive path and I'm willing to put both time and money into building a "keep Obama honest" organization.  

But just saying "we ought to speak out" doesn't really accomplish anything helpful.  Is anyone actually saying we shouldn't criticize people Obama is hiring?  Is anyone officially connected with the Obama campaign asking for such silence?

The Obama folks seem to have pretty thick skins.  They're the ones, after all, who are willing to have Joe Lieberman -- someone who openly questioned Obama's patriotism -- keep a powerful committee chairmanship in the Senate.  A chairmanship Lieberman can use to investigate and embarrass an Obama Administration.

Does anyone think the Obama folks are really worried about "The Few Honest Bloggers" criticizing some of their hires?  Speaking for me only, I don't think so.

I am still pulling for an outright ban on waterboarding and other inhumane treatment, and a closing of Guantanamo and all secret prisons (for the record).  The WSJ article and Brennan's current post don't automatically lead me to think we won't get this.

Finally, I don't give a damn about telco immunity.  The administration is ultimately responsible for anything illegal, so going after telcos and not the government who coerced them is silly.  And the administration has worse sins to atone for (like torture).

At the Pentagon, the large transition office would likely include former Clinton Navy Secretary Richard Danzig and former Clinton-era Pentagon comptroller Bill Lynn, officials said. The announcements are expected later this week.

"There's a lot of disinformation out there," Cutter said. "We're working hard to put the agenda review teams together and expect they'll be announced and inside the agencies by the end of the week."

All I was trying to say in the previous thread is it seems you are so eager to be the first one to condemn Obama's hiring choices, when it appears they have not even been made yet.

I'll have to go back to re-read the interview in light of the passage in the New Yorker saying [emphasis added]:

Setting aside the moral, ethical, and legal issues, even supporters, such as John Brennan, acknowledge that much of the information that coercion produces is unreliable.

Which leads to the core problem itself. Obama.

If he was who he campaigned as we would not be having this discussion.

Agree totally EXCEPT that "who he campaigned as" is exactly who he is--but his supporters refused to see it. This is the guy who used his political capital to push for FISA and strong-arm Congress into granting the no-strings bank bailout...both while he was still campaigning. The guy who "fixed" healthcare reform in Illinois to make it more amenable to the "concerns of the insurance industry."

Whose chief legal adviser, for that matter, is pro-torture and pro-unitary-executive Cass Sunstein.

 Veterans experience a hell of emotions different than
those expressed in speeches of praise for veterans of all America's wars, without regard to the justness of any of these wars. How 'bout the veteran who killed an Iraqi, maybe a child, in what Obama rightly called a "dumb war" - a veteran who has seen dead Afghani civilians after an air-strike. Vets don't need a day! Already have Memorial Day. Vets want a War Victims Day!