These are questions specifically for Rob based on his introduction post.

Rob, you stated this:

To me too often in these past terms, many past administrations did not hold the standards expected, in my view played favorites, or worse let their administrations agendas be such a driving focus in putting what could be termed their ‘allies’ in positions in the cabinet and such that rifts formed in the club. This process to me has only gotten worse in more recent times and become more evident.

A lack of holding to standards makes sense. The rest of this doesn’t make sense to me and isn’t evident at all to me.

To be sure, there have been instances of execs placing friends of theirs into cabinet positions. But there have also been instances of execs placing people they did not care for at all into cabinet positions. I believe every President has placed people into their cabinet they were not friends with. With the limited number of people applying for cabinet positions, it isn’t feasible for a President to surround themselves with only those they have been friends with. Since I joined the club there have been over 50 different people who have served in cabinets and in that time all fourteen of the Presidents have chosen a cabinet member who hadn’t been chosen by a previous President. In my view the Presidents collectively have done a great job of including a variety of people as well as new people into their administrations.

So to the questions. What is the evidence that I am wrong? And of the last fourteen Presidents, how many would you say were selecting their cabinet members in the inappropriate manner that you described?

Adam W.