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Commerce Cabinet Crisis: John Bryson

I realize I totally fell down on the job with the Commerce Cabinet Crisis series during the horrible interregnum unleashed by Gary Locke’s appointment as Ambassador to China. Still, today I can report that early this afternoon Barack Obama will nominate John Bryson to fill this vital role. Who’s John Bryson, you ask?

Well, he seems like prototypical Commerce Secretary material. He’s a businessman — former CEO and Chairman of Edison International and current Director at Boeing and Walt Disney — with a civic minded bent. According to Forbes, he’s trustee of the California Institute of Technology, a director of the W.M. Keck Foundation and The California Endowment, and Chairman of the Pacific Council on International Policy. In office he’ll most likely have little influence on American public policy, but I guess we can consider this part of the Obama administration’s mildly misguided CEO outreach initiative.

My dark horse candidate for the post was Acting Deputy Secretary Rebecca Blank who, among other things, has a cool name. Maybe she’ll get a shot one of these days.

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