More Like This Please

So the President-Elect has made the first selections for his science team, leaders in their fields with absurdly sterling academic credentials, and charged them with addressing global warming in the course of attacking years of Bush administration "inactivity."

Link to story here.

I heard someone the other day describe the climate crisis as the human population of the planet driving a car with faulty brakes toward a cliff in a dense fog with the vague idea that they'll be able to stop before something unpleasant happens. Indeed. The policy shift these picks suggest is long, long overdue.

O-ba-ma.

Clinton at State, Gates to Stay Put

I haven’t really had a whole lot to say about politics in the last couple of weeks. I’ve never heard of the vast majority of the people the Obama administration will be made up of. It seemed kind of silly to pretend like I had much of an opinion on exactly what’s going into the new government. I voted for Obama, he got elected: it only seems fair that he should get a chance to actually start governing before I begin complaining too much.

Of course, the big news of the last couple weeks is the slow motion dance that Obama and Hillary Clinton have been engaged in. I’m glad that particular story has finally come to its conclusion. I don’t have any real strong feelings about this, either, although it puzzles me on Clinton’s part: giving up a Senate seat she could have held for life to take up a cabinet post that will last only a presidential term, if that, seems like an odd decision. But I don’t make her choices for her. While Clinton and Obama had their disagreements about foreign policy during the campaign, there really wasn’t a whole lot of difference between the two – and I doubt that Clinton is going to be running her own show. Obama is still going to call the shots. Still: eh. I can’t really summon much enthusiasm for the pick, one way or the other.

Keeping on Gates, though, is I think a thornier issue. I’ve heard the argument that the military is comfortable with Gates, that it’s a tiny bit of compromise towards Republicans and might allow some of the more realistically-minded Republicans to reach across the aisle and work with Obama instead of just obstructing until they get another chance to reduce the Democratic majorities in the Congress.

Fair enough, I suppose, and I won’t say the argument doesn’t have a certain internal logic to it. What bothers me is the idea this reinforces, that the military is more comfortable with Republican figures than Democrats. That meme, whether it’s real or exists purely in the media imagination, is a dangerous one. Obama, and progressives more broadly, need to make sure that we move the country away from that idea. If Gates can act as a transitional figure to a progressive voice that’s acceptable with the military establishment, that’s great. We need to see an end to the idea of conservatives as the big, tough warriors who will keep us pony-tailed, Volvo-driving, NPR-listening liberals safe while we go on and on about domestic issues.

Meanwhile, speaking of NPR, where’s my canvas tote? I need to get down to the farmer’s market to grab some arugula.

The Grownups

Generally, when American politics gets reflected in the British press, the picture that results is slightly, subtly, wrong. You the reader are left to puzzle over how different national perspectives can be.

However, this article from the Guardian actually reflects the picture rather well, giving the perspective one hopes to gain from distance.

Why are the British waiting for Obama to take office?

"After John McCain threatened the world with a putative vice-president who seemed to regard her own ignorance as a credential for high office, and after he granted Joe the Plumber the status of chief adviser on taxation policy, it's a relief that the US will soon be run by people with qualifications to do the job."

OK, you already knew why they were excited- I just wanted to put that quote in the post. It encapsulates a primary dynamic of the election for me in a single sentence.

Also, a note to all you people in MOVEON and others whining that the President Elect isn't "changing" enough: stop being upset that Obama is hiring experienced people to work in his administration. Stop being upset that he is charting centrist policies. Why should you stop? Because he told you, repeatedly, during the election that he was going to govern this way. We hired this guy to be competent and sane- with his press conferences over the last three days, he has looked both, and is cutting a remarkable contrast to W, who seems to have finally been crushed by the weight of circumstance. Let's get through the next month and a half, let the President try to save us from a depression, acknowledge that industrial societies are destroying the planet, and release our untried prisoners from military prisons. Then we can start arguing about the finer nuances.

Picking the Team

So Hillary Rodham Clinton will join the line of women to hold the office of Secretary of State- at least, we are left to assume this. The NYT broke that story like 2 days ago, and we've yet to hear a tornado of denials. It therefore must be so.

With this news, we are greeted with another round of Doris Kearns Goodwin-inspired stories, like this one in the NYT, extolling the virtues of a "team of rivals" in the White House.

Goodwin has sold a bunch of copies of her book about the Lincoln cabinet, and rather given some of the commentariat the vapors with regard to this style of government. At the risk of going far, far outside my area of competence here, wasn't the Lincoln model seen as a sign of weakness when he did it? A desperate move by an executive whose administrative unit was literally tearing itself apart?

And obviously, in a broader sense, putting Clinton at State (leaving aside for a moment questions about why_on_Earth she'd leave a senate seat for life to take the job) nods toward the idea that Obama is also a fan of this model. John Kennedy also appears to have used a modified version of this, thus ensuring that the concept appears historically with an aura of hallowed tradition.

However, probably far more presidents have attempted to use this model and failed than have managed to use it successfully. Think of examples of cabinet officers installed to inform policy debates with their "opposition" perspectives, who have subsequently been marginalized by presidents who might or might not appreciate hearing their perspective at moments of crisis but didn't actually want to make policy with them, and who as a result might have been better served by someone who could make policy suggestions that actually reflected the president's views. Think of George Ball, Zbigniew Brzezinski, and most recently, Colin Powell. The "team of rivals" is appealing for its elegance and what it says about the person capable of using it well, but many fine presidents have found it unworkable, if they ever attempted to use it at all. The "team of rivals" is the governing equivalent of a racing yacht- magnificent if handled skillfully, but delicate even then, and ruinous in the hands of those temperamentally unsuited to it. Remember what happened to LBJ with JFK's advisers?

And anyway, considering Hillary has her own national following and the marital equivalent of a loose cannon smashing around below deck, aren't ya just asking for unnecessary headaches with this? Is there any reason to believe she can play well with others? Hillary might turn out to be a fantastic part of an Obama governing team. But she might just as easily turn out to be a constant reminder of the tragi-drama of the '90's.

The President Has Added You as a Friend

The soon-to-be Obama administration has a plan to use its ten million strong email list once it takes up residence at the White House, according to the Washington Post. The Post suggests that we could see weekly addresses via streaming video or other vague and largely unspecified “new media” ideas. I can’t see this evolving into a kind of White House-sanctioned Daily Kos, but it is an interesting development. I could easily see Obama using their lists of emails to solicit political pressure on Congress. It’s going to be an interesting development to watch, and with the massive success of Obama’s fundraising, I doubt that anyone is going to let this drop off the map.

It also mentions that the Obama campaign used their email list as collateral for a loan that they didn’t end up taking out. That just seems insane. It’s unbelievable how much further out ahead of the game the Obama team was compared with everybody else.

Dog Bites Man

The New York Times brings us the startling news that Obama is putting together a transition team that’s made up of people who were closely associated with the Clinton White House, people who were tangentially associated with it and people who were not involved in it. Good to know.

Obama won a very close and very contentious primary this spring. It’s good that he’s pulling in some Clinton people to help set up his government, but I doubt we’ll be seeing too many that were closely associated with the Clintons in major posts, Rahm Emanuel excepted. It’s pretty much exactly what you’d expect. Obama is bridging from the old new Democratic Party to the new new Democratic Party. I’ll be curious to see who he picks, although I don’t know enough about the people to really have an opinion on most appointments. I’ll be learning something new, I guess.