Alfred E. Neuman

While we continue to wait for President Obama to nominate an Undersecretary of Commerce for Intellectual Property, otherwise known as the Director of the Patent Office, I figured it was about time to make another nomination, but who?  From what I hear, the rumor is that President Obama has made his selection but the vetting processing is taking a lot longer than expected, and a lot longer than it should.  How is it possible you can make a Supreme Court nomination within a matter of a few weeks, but the vetting process for PTO Director is taking many months?  I don’t know I buy the rumors, but I suppose if you are going to have a tax vetting problem it is either going to be you didn’t pay taxes at all, took dubious deductions or made enough money to hire the best and brightest tax attorneys to come up with many legitimate uses of the many loopholes in the Tax Code.  So if the rumors are true it has to be David Kappos of IBM.  Nevertheless, with so much delay, and no reputable sources identifying “the candidate,” either this secret is being kept with Fort Knox like security, and far better than secrets having national security implications, or the rumors are wrong, or it is Kappos.  Who knows?  Not me.  But what I do know is that President Obama should definitely have Alfred E. Neuman on his short list.  A character like Al Neuman would be perfect because he wouldn’t (and couldn’t) get in the way of the progress being made by the quite able members of the PTO senior management team who are doing what is necessary to move the PTO forward.  Amazing what can be accomplished without having the watchful eye (and meddling) of a political appointment.  So, without further ado I place into nomination Alfred E. Neuman for PTO Director.