The Title Is "Transportation Secretary," Not "Congressional Liaison."

Apparently, Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood doesn't care that much about transportation, and would have been just as happy to be Agriculture Secretary. Actually, given the New York Times description of how he's going about his job, it sounds like LaHood would have been cheerful just being Barack Obama's liaison to Congressional Republicans. As the Times says:

As transportation secretary, Mr. LaHood leads an agency with 56,000 employees, a $70 billion budget and a huge barrel of economic stimulus money. While that gives him some influence inside the cabinet, his bond with Mr. Emanuel, his former House colleague from Illinois, most likely gives him more.

I can't decide if I'm more worried about the fact that LaHood doesn't seem super-passionate about managing those employees and that money (though to be fair, he moved to end one of the longest-running conflicts under his jurisdiction, the feud between the Federal Aviation Administration and the National Air Traffic Controllers Association, and he and Vice President Biden have done some road-tripping on behalf of high-speed rail) or the fact that the Times didn't seem to think it was remotely important to explore the implications of how LaHood feels about his job for the Department's management.