“President-Elect Obama’s transition team has asked Ambassador Mark Dybul to remain in place as Global AIDS Coordinator, despite strong opposition by treatment access, HIV prevention, and women’s rights advocates across the global HIV and AIDS community.”

However, maybe BO’s intended message is different and I’m just not getting it.

Richard Kim at The Nation:

I understand the left’s sense of betrayal, but this reaction to Obama’s choice is off the mark. It’s a sign of how much we have conceded to the religious right that almost nobody asked why there should be an invocation at all.

Nancy Goldstein at Salon writes:

In short, enough lipstick is being applied to this pig to empty MAC cosmetics’ shelves. Yes, it’s nice that Robinson will headline an ancillary inaugural event. But it took literally 27 days of outright uproar on queer and progressive blogs for Team Obama to issue the invitation. The turning point appears to have come only when Obama apologists like Melissa Etheridge failed to quell the storm (by relaying her story of the really nice hug Warren gave her), while Frank Rich gained the ear of straight America with an unflattering, spot-on New York Times column.

There’s already plenty of evidence that Obama already knows better than to consider inclusiveness a “one from column A, one from column B” proposition. For all of Obama’s talk in a press conference the day after the Warren announcement about how important it is “for America to come together even though we may have disagreements on certain social issues,” John Aravosis of Americablog was quick to note that he doesn’t call for people of color to sit down at the table with openly declared racists. The same goes for women and Jews, I would add. You won’t see Obama inviting Ann Coulter to headline a key event, then “balancing” her with an invite to Patricia J. Williams. Ditto for Holocaust denier David Irving and Elie Weisel, or David Duke and Henry Louis Gates.