The Obama administration has, according to Marc Ambinder at the Atlantic, already set a sort of record for number of cabinet/subcabinet appointments pushed through in ~20 days. Apparently, appointments usually pick up steam starting in March, after the budget is taken care of in Congress.
Presumably, the CTO is pretty low on the list of priorities compared to many of the other positions (like HHS) that remain unfilled.
First let me just say this isn't an anti-Obama post. So if you absolutely love him try to hear me out here.
That said the featured post is more about transparency than it is about actually filling the position. On that note I think it's time for the Obama people to realize "Transparent Government" was more a campaign promise than an actual reality.
I mean, he probably intended everything he said but in reality you just can't make it happen. No matter how smart, how well intentioned, how good hearted, or whatever. You still need to play politics and that goal is contrary to complete transparency.
Let me give an example. Money is going to have to be cut from a lot of good programs. So say you're President Obama and you have Aids research and Cancer research and you have to cut money from one. Cancer kills about 570,000 Americans a year (http://ezinearticles.com/?How-Many-People-Die-From-Cancer-Ea...) while Aids has killed about 570,000 since the Aids epidemic began (http://www.avert.org/statsum.htm).
So the President, being forced to pick one, cuts funding for Aids research and suddenly loses the vote of every person who uses that as their hedge issue. Politics is a game of pushing people's emotional buttons and that's simply incompatible with the very rational idea of Transparency.
If Obama supporters really want him to succeed they'll need to come to terms with the fact that he won't be able to fill some of his more ambition promises in the current economic crisis. This woman's view of what a National CTO will be is almost certainly going to be one of those unfulfilled promises.
(I can almost feel myself losing Karma points for this post but it doesn't make it any less true)
Imagine a WW II era politician in London who gets elected on the promimse of building a new University. Right after the election Germany declares war and starts bombing London. Under those circumstances is it still wrong for him to go back on his promise of building a University?
You have to judge people by the circumstances they're handed and sometimes that means giving them a pass on certain promises
Presumably, the CTO is pretty low on the list of priorities compared to many of the other positions (like HHS) that remain unfilled.