According to your link, here's the criteria Cembalest used:
"Many of these individuals started a company or ran one, with first-hand experience in hiring and firing, domestic and international competition, red tape, recessions, wars and technological change. Their industries included agribusiness, chemicals, finance, construction, communications, energy, insurance, mining, publishing, pharmaceuticals, railroads and steel; a cross-section of the American experience. (I even gave [one-third] credit to attorneys focused on private-sector issues, although one could argue this is a completely different kettle of fish.)
Your source claims Shaun Donovan, Steven Chu, Ken Salazar meet that criteria. And claims Hillary Clinton, Tom Vilsack and Gary Locke meet the private practice lawyer criteria (in which case, they'd count as one). And also claims Geithner meets the critera. But seriously, folks, do these folks really have much in the way of REAL private sector experience? Profit and loss statements. Creating capital. Dealing with taxes? Producing and selling a product? Advertising that product? Actually running a business? Or is Politifact cheating a bit in it's characterization of their experience?
Let's take a closer look.
Born in 1966, Shaun Donovan's private-sector experience consists solely of what he did between the time he graduated from college in 1995 and October 1998 when he joined HUD. Given his inexperience at the time, it's unlikely he did those things that Cembalest identified … ran anything or had first-hand experience in hiring and firing. His bio says he worked first as an architect during that time and then worked for the Community Preservation Corporation,
a non-profit group in New York City. As an architect, when you first get out of school, you tend to do grunt work. Ask any architect. He wasn't running anything or worrying about corporate survival. And his work at the CPC would appear to be much the same. In fact, it appears he spent the rest of his life figuring out how to basically give houses away using mostly government money. And look how that turned out, folks? His attitude about the private sector is summarized by him … "
I would never believe that the private sector, left to its own devices, is the best possible solution." Sorry, but given all that, I don't really think he deserves credit for any free-market, true private-sector experience.
Steven Chu worked at Bell Labs from 1978 to 1987, where he and several co-workers carried out some Nobel Prize-winning research. You may call this "private sector", but it's not exactly the sort of job Cembalest identified in his criteria as relevant to showing a person's financial and free-market acumen. He had little to do with the "business" end of things, with dealing with the real time stresses of the business world. And then he went back to academia for a while. Then he did a stint as Director of Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, but that's not what I'd call a private sector job either. It's essentially living off the government. He didn't take products to market but worked on grants from the government. With the usual government waste. In fact, does LLNL even have to pay taxes and a business entity? In any case, I am willing to give him partial credit (say a 1/3rd of a job) since at least he wasn't engaged in giving away houses to people who couldn't afford them and LLNL does serve national defense.
Now Ken Salazar is a lawyer who went into private-practice law immediately after college for a few years (from 1981 to 1985), and then reentered private practice from 1994 to 1998 before landing his next government gig. While his family was in the ranching business, and he is is often listed as a “rancher”, his "business" experience is really only in environmental and water-related law. Using Cembalest's criteria, his law experience should only count as 1/3rd of a job regardless, same as Cembalest gave the lawyers in the other administrations to which he compared Obama's.
Now Hillary Clinton's private practice experience was with the Rose Law Firm. Do you REALLY want to discuss THAT job experience? Because, remember, those Rose Firm Firm billing records that showed up in her Whitehouse living quarters, just days after the statute of limitations on crimes they proved had expired, didn't just walk there. Because we could discuss the other documents she and her Rose Law Firm partner, William Kennedy, ordered Rose Law Firm couriers to shred? Or perhaps we should talk about what happened to her Rose Law firm partner, Vince Foster … who was not only a good friend but the Clinton's personal lawyer? Or we can discuss convicted Rose Law firm attorney and good friend of the Clintons, Web Hubble, and his role in Whitewater (a Rose Law Firm scandal)? Yes, I'm sure her experience working at the Rose Law Firm prepared her for work in the Obama administration … but not in the way you and Politfact want folks to think. So I'm sorry, no private-sector experience for Hillary in my book.
Sure, Timothy Geithner had private sector experience. He worked for Kissinger Associates for three years, right out of school. As such, I doubt his job carried much responsibility or focus on *running the business*. In fact,
http://www.suite101.com/content/timothy-geithner-and-blackrock-inc-a113800 states that "According to Henry Kissinger, Geithner was hired to help research a book." Not run a company. And this was an influence peddling firm … not your typical private sector job. What specifically it did and for whom seems to be a secret. As the NYTimes Magazine reported in 1986, "It is very difficult to pin down what Mr. Kissinger and the others are really doing in the business end of their lives. None will say for attribution who their clients are or discuss the specifics of what they do, although they do talk about their work with the understanding that they not be identified…Kissinger Associates requires a clause in its contracts stating that neither the firm nor its clients will divulge a business connection…” Just the sort of experience we need in the most *transparent* administration in history.
And isn't it ironic that Obama, who made such a big thing about attacking "special interests", should bring into his cabinet a person who has been described (
http://www.aim.org/aim-column/the-big-money-behind-geithner/ ) as a "wheeler-dealer for powerful special interests."
Now after those 3 years, Geithner joined the government. Then later worked for the Council on Foreign Relations for a while. That's not your typical private sector job, either. Then he worked for the Federal Reserve Bank. Again, not your typical private sector job. In each case, more concerned about influencing government than bringing a product to the free-market or the everyday problems associated with running a successful business … such as paying your taxes (which you know Geithner failed to do). So I'm sorry, I'm going to have to suggest Cembalest was right in not crediting Geithner with private sector experience on par with people from other administrations.
Now it's true that Tom Vilsack worked for over 10 years in private practice as an attorney, and even longer while holding not-full-time elective offices such as mayor and state representative. But the best I can give him is 1/3rd of a honest job based on Cembalest's criteria. Especially since he seems to have a soft spot for *farmers* who started farms established using communist principles.
And it's also true that Gary Locke had private law experience, from 1975 through his election as Executive in King County in 1993, and then again after 2005 until 2009. But then, some of that experience is tied to John Huang and Chinagate. So maybe he doesn't deserve a 1/3rd of a job, like Cembalest gave other lawyers. And besides, Locke now seems more concerned about America paying for China's carbon emissions and removing our export control restrictions (so China can get even more formerly restricted technology) than America actually producing products to sell to … well … the Chinese, for instance. So all in all, I don't really think Locke should get credit for a 1/3rd of a private sector job credit either.
Now, since none of the other two Cabinet members that were named meet the assumptions that Cembalest made in his study, or are claimed in your link to meet them, let's see where we stand. Out of those nine cabinet positions, I count the equivalent of 1 free-market, private-sector job. That 1/9 = 11%. Granted that's a little more than Cembalest allowed, but it's still far less than any of the other administrations appear to have had, using the criteria that Cembalest established (and their percentages might go up too, if I applied my revised and more lenient criteria to them).
