This morning a story in the Washington Times reported “The Obama administration asked retired Marine Gen. Anthony Zinni to be U.S. ambassador to Iraq but abruptly withdrew the appointment without explanation, Gen. Zinni said Tuesday.”

This is a seemingly inexplicable move by the Obama adminstration. Zinni, who has a reputation for being very straightforward, claims he was offered the job by Hillary Clinton personally and had begun planning before the offer was revoked. Circumstances surrounding Zinni’s alleged ambassadorship may yet come to light and perhaps explain what happened. However, for the time being it looks just like another in a very long line of problems the Obama administration has had staffing the new administration.

That the Zinni incident follows the “Daschle debacle” yesterday — the descriptive phrase employed by no less than the Associated Press — suggests that things might be getting out of control in the nascent administration. Yesterday, Obama couldn’t even refrain from giving the media symbolic fodder. After years of making light of the fact that President Bush was reading My Pet Goat to school children when he was informed of the 9/11 attacks, Obama escaped the worst day of his presidency to read The Moon Over Star at a school near the White House. Maureen Dowd was drawn to the unfavorable comparison like a moth to a flame.

Just to keep track, I’ve compiled a list of Obama’s personnel missteps below. Feel free to let me know if I’ve missed anything and I’ll update the list:

–Governor Bill Richardson bows out of the running for Commerce secretary amid questions over a pay-to-play scandal.
–Hillary Clinton is appointed Secretary of State despite concerns there’s still no real transparency about her husband’s foundation accepting large donations from international donors and foreign governments.
–Timoth Geithner, appointed Treasury secretary, hit with major tax evasion problems.
–Nancy Killefer, who was to be appointed Obama’s “performance czar,” withdraws after it’s revealed she didn’t pay taxes on domestic help for over a year.
–Tom Daschle, HHS nominee, withdraws over serious tax evasion problems and not before several questions about his role as a high-paid influence peddler have been raised.
–Geithner appoints as chief of staff Mark Patterson, a former Goldman Sachs lobbyist, who will be overseeing the Treasury’s $700 billion TARP program. Goldman has already received $10 billion of that money.
–Obama appoints an acting Secretary of Labor, because his nominee Hilda Solis used to be the treasurer of American Rights at Work, which is strongly in favor of card check legislation, angering Republicans. Further, ARW is a labor lobbying group and Solis’ position as treasurer there calls into question — again — Obama’s commitment to reducing the influence of lobbyists.
–The administration waived its lobbying rules for William Lynn, who lobbied for a defense contractor as recently as last year, to serve as deputy Defense secretary. When asked about this during a visit to the White House press room, Obama “flashes irritation,” according to Politico.
–Politico eventually publishes an extensive list of lobbyists who have made their way into the Obama administration.
–Initially, it was announced that Mark Dybul, Bush’s much praised Global AIDS coordinator, would be staying on. Then during Obama’s first week, Dybul was dumped without warning and told to leave by the end of the day, earning opprobrium across the spectrum from conservative columnists to the editorial board of the San Francisco Chronicle.