THE TRANSITION WENT SO WELL UNTIL W LEFT:

WITH FRIENDS LIKE THESE ... (ANNIE KARNI, March 8, 2009, NY Post)

The best way judge a person is by the company he keeps. But President Obama is having trouble keeping any company at all. Recently his Cabinet nominees have been dropping like flies - Sanjay Gupta's withdrawal from the surgeon general slot on Thursday brought the number of botched high-level candidates to seven. "He's having a lot of trouble getting nominations pushed through," says Paul Light, professor of Public Service at NYU's Wagner School. "He's falling behind Bush and Clinton in his number of confirmed candidates in the first 100 days. He can't afford another one."