There are many people on the left who are upset that President-Elect Obama only picked one liberal for his cabinet (Secretary of Labor). Most of his picks are Centrist, with a few Center/Left and a few Center/right choices. There are those who are complaining not enough women, or Southerners, or (put interest group here) were not chosen. The Rev Rick Warren is drawing a lot of fire, even though he will only talk for a minute, giving a brief prayer.
The first question a candidate asks after the election is "What do we do now?" the immortal line from the movie "The Candidate". Sen Obama started immediately on getting his cabinet together to tackle the problems our country faces. The persons on the Cabinet are there to carry out his policies, and also give advice on what is the way to go about it. They may disagree and with good reason. A good leader listens to what those disagreements are and how to solve them. The President is not just the President of the Democrats, but also to the Republicans, Greens, Libertarians, etc. He has to do what is best for the country, and not give the special interests what they want. That is what he did campaign against, was the Washington as usual. Just because they are left leaning, they are still special interest groups.
As for Rev Rick Warner, it is good to get everyone into the fold, even people you disagree with. They are still citizens, and should be part of the solutions, not the problems.

My point is, if people are complaining, the President is doing his job right.

I applaud Obama's choice for Secretary of Labor. It's been a long time since a pro-labor person has been in that post (see my signature).

As far as his mainly centrist cabinet, I have few arguments with it. I think he doesn't want to surround himself with "yes people"--which IMO Bush did--but rather wants a vigorous debate so he can hear all sides before making a decision.

I understand that he has read, and is impressed by, the recently released "Team of Rivals" (I believe the author is historian Doris Kearns Goodwin) about Lincoln's cabinet. He deliberately chose people who disareeed with him or were out-and-out enemies, for the reasons I outlined above.

I am aware that leftists will find him too conservative and right-wingers will find him too liberal. I think the truth is if he leans even further to the left than he already is he could lose the support of Congress and a majority of the American people. He has to accomplish as much as he can with those constraints on him.

I may be perhaps not critical enough because I still have the impression that he has a first-rate mind and I can trust his judgment. I'm sure he will do things I don't agree with in the future--I don't expect anybody to be a carbon copy of me.
I might have chosen a few cabinet members differently but I support his goal of achieving a balanced viewpoint.

The economy has gone down the tubes. Whoever was the president would no doubt be blamed for it; it would happen if it were McCain, too. The economy will of necessity be Obama's first priority.

He has an ambitious plan, not seen since Roosevelt, to infuse huge amounts of money into the economy to stimulate it. In another thread I pointed out that Bill Clinton and many other economists also share this view. Unfortunately, his plan, even if it works, will take some time before it is really effective. It took about 10 years to see the results of Roosevelt's solution. People will be calling for Obama's impeachment after a few months. Some already are, and he hasn't even begun yet.

I admit to being a liberal, and therefore optimistic about Obama's potential-- if he ever gets to realize it. We've tried Bush's way. While I agreed with Bush and Paulson on the need for a bailout, I believed there was a need for strict oversight, which hasn't happened, at least not for the Wall Street firms.

I think you're right about the Blue Dogs. My congressman is one and he voted against the bailout every time it came up for a vote. He was up for re-election last November and many of his constitutents were against it. The Blue Dogs will likely go with the Republicans on a number of issues.

Obama is faced with the difficult task of implementing some radical solutions while still attempting to govern from the center.