Obama spokesman takes jab at Perry

President Obama’s top spokesman on Tuesday took a dig at former Texas Gov. Rick Perry (R), President-elect Donald Trump’s expected choice to be secretary of Energy.

White House press secretary Josh Earnest appeared to echo outside doubts about Perry’s qualifications to lead the agency tasked with overseeing the nation’s arsenal of nuclear weapons and conducting energy research.

Earnest was defending the Energy Department’s rejection of a request by Trump transition team to name staffers who worked on climate-change programs, saying that career civil servants should be “evaluated based on merit and not on politics.”

{mosads}The spokesman then added, “I’m sure that the president-elect used the same kind of criteria when choosing his new Department of Energy secretary as well … don’t you think?”

Asked later to elaborate on his comments, Earnest said, “I think I’ve said enough about that.”

The comments were unusual for the White House, which has typically refrained from publicly criticizing Trump’s Cabinet nominees while pledging a smooth transition of power. 

Critics have accused Trump of making a politically motivated pick in Perry, who would break with a line of scientists who have held the post. 

The longtime Texas governor would replace Ernest Moniz, a nuclear physicist who with deep experience in government and academia. Moniz’s predecessor under Obama, Stephen Chu, was also a scientist.

President George W. Bush’s final secretary of Energy, Samuel Bodman, had a doctorate in chemical engineering.

Perry, a longtime Obama critic, famously forgot the agency’s name during his failed 2012 presidential campaign, even while calling for it to be abolished.

Supporters of Perry point to his three-plus terms governing Texas, a state rich with oil and gas reserves, as evidence he is prepared for the role.