commentary: obama ignores latinos

ruben navarrette expresses his personal opinions about president elect barack obama on his decision not to hire any latino officials in his cabinet. four years ago he wrote a column praising president bush hiring latinos into his cabinet. bush broke barriers because never before in history has a latino been nominated for one of the top four jobs -- defense, state, treasury, or attorney general (cnn.com). among them was alberto gonzales as attorney general. navarrette claims that obama is continuing this poor tradtion by overlooking latinos. he feels that new mexico govenor bill richardson would have been a better choice for secretary of state instead of hillary clinton. and why not? richardson has an impressive resume to back: seven term member of congress, u.n. amassador, energy secretary, and five time nominee for the nobel peace prize. plus richardson is the highest ranking latino in the country and latinos supported obama over mccain with a 2-1 margin which helped in four key key states. he also "turned his back" on the hillary clinton campaign to help support barack obama. not to mention the national hispanic leadership agenda sent a letter to the president elect recommending richardson to the secretary of state position. but instead he was given commerce secretary backed by obama saying this is a very important position. richardson wasnt even first choice, that goes to penny pritzker, billionaire heir to the hyatt hotel fortune. i believe richardson should have a top four job, but maybe this is karma for his "betrayal" of the clinton campaign.