Cooper: 'Experience' charge making Democrats look desperate

The left's desperation to delegitimize President-elect Donald Trump before he takes office would be funny if it weren't so pathetic.

This week's rant is the supposed lack of experience of his cabinet selections. Of most recent note is the pick of famed pediatric neurosurgeon and former presidential candidate Dr. Ben Carson as secretary of the Department of Housing and Urban Development.

The left's complaint is that he has no background in government or running a large bureaucracy.

To that, in part, we say thank goodness. Too much government, after all, is the problem, not the solution. Washington, D.C., needs answers based in the real world, not in the echo chamber of the federal government.

Indeed, how refreshing would it be if cabinet officers suggested policy based on what would help the average Joe rather than seeking ways in which the government can wrap its tentacles tighter around every aspect of an individual's life and livelihood.

Carson, because of his youth in an impoverished single-parent home in Detroit, understands perhaps more than any previous Housing and Urban Development secretary about the challenges of the job. Though he may not have overseen a bureaucracy, his gifts and graces seem well qualified to, as stated on the cabinet office's website, "create strong, sustainable, inclusive communities," "strengthen the housing market to bolster the economy and protect consumers," and "utilize housing as a platform for improving quality of life."

Further, as an undeclared and declared presidential candidate for the better part of two years, he naturally would have had to outline broad ideas and goals around every aspect of the presidency, including housing.

But put Carson aside for a moment and look back eight years to the original cabinet nominees of Barack Obama, called by ABC a "Dream Team."

His original selections included a secretary of state with no foreign policy experience (Hillary Clinton), a secretary of treasury who intentionally hadn't paid self-employment taxes for several years (Timothy Geithner), a secretary of commerce whose name had to be withdrawn due to a federal investigation into some of his political donors (Bill Richardson), a secretary of labor whose husband was being investigated over tax problems (Hilda Solis), a secretary of health and human services whose name had to be withdrawn because he failed to pay taxes (Tom Daschle) and a secretary of transportation whose resume was seen as thin on transportation matters (Ray LaHood).

Of course, several of his other cabinet selections gained infamy from their various acts while in office. Clinton, most famously, intentionally used an illegal email server and is being investigated for pay-for-play allegations intertwining access to her office and contributions to her family's foundation.

Elsewhere, Attorney General Eric Holder refused to uphold the law in case after case where he and the Obama administration disagreed with it, and later was held in contempt of Congress; Secretary of Education Arne Duncan set up a scheme in which states had to adopt Common Core or other college and career ready education standards or lose federal funding; Secretary of Health and Human Services Kathleen Sebelius resigned when the HealthCare.gov roll-out crashed; and Secretary of Veterans Affairs Eric Shinseki had to resign when it was revealed a number of veterans hospitals were not giving veterans timely care and were falsifying records to cover up the problem.

We can't say, at this point, whether it will matter that retired Gen. James Mattis, slated to head Trump's Department of Defense, has never run a large cabinet bureaucracy, that former Goldman Sachs partner Steve Mnuchin, picked to be secretary of the treasury, has never run a government agency, or that South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley, the designee as ambassador to the United Nations, has no foreign policy experience.

But just in recent years, for example, neither Les Aspin nor William Cohen as defense secretaries under President Bill Clinton had run large government bureaucracies, Robert Rubin as second-term treasury secretary under Clinton also came from Goldman Sachs, and Andrew Young as ambassador to the United Nations under President Jimmy Carter had no foreign policy experience.

With cabinet secretaries as with presidents, the proof will be in the doing. A lifetime bureaucrat might make a lousy cabinet member, and a veteran of the private sector might make a good one.

Cabinet-level offices employ from 4,200 people (Department of Education) to 1.8 million people (Department of Defense), so cabinet secretaries can afford to be the public faces of their agencies. Yes, they set the tone for their office, but they do not have to cross every "t" and dot every "i."

Ben Carson may turn out to be a terrific Housing and Urban Development secretary, or he may find he is not suited for the work. But he along with Trump's other nominees don't deserve to be the subject of such vapid and vacant arguments that they don't have the experience for the job. Who, after all, does unless they previously have been a cabinet secretary?