Rupert Cornwell: Coolly, calmly, Obama is putting together a remarkable team

[babylonsister]

Rupert Cornwell: Coolly, calmly, Obama is putting together a remarkable team

Out of America: Even senior Republicans admit that – on paper, at least – the president-elect is assembling a very impressive administration

Sunday, 23 November 2008


This is the hour of a Democratic restoration in Washington, but – with the possible exception of Hillary Clinton's "I do" of political marriage to Barack Obama – the most telling political words here last week may have been some grudging praise uttered by a Republican.

Mitch McConnell of Kentucky is as canny and crusty a Senate minority leader as they come. But even he confided to reporters that the new administration was "off to a good start". If McConnell is impressed, then Obama must be doing something right. In fact, three weeks after he secured the job, he's yet to make a serious misstep. If yesterday's flurry of reports are correct about Clinton and other impending cabinet appointments, then the president-elect is putting together one of the most impressive administrations of recent times – and doing so with a method and unflappability that can only bode well.

The formal announcement that Clinton will be the next secretary of state will only be made after this week's Thanksgiving holiday. But every piece of the puzzle is in place. Her husband's complex financial and global philanthropic activities have been vetted. Javier Solana, the EU foreign policy chief, gave his warm anticipatory blessing to the appointment on Friday, as did Henry Kissinger before him.

How quickly the barbs of the campaign trail are forgotten. Was it only a few months ago that Obama was deriding his rival's foreign policy experience as consisting of "having tea with ambassadors' wives" – while she was saying that his amounted to "a single speech in 2002" opposing the Iraq war? When he did not offer her the vice-presidential spot on the ticket last summer, it seemed as if the longest-running political soap opera of modern times was finally over. After defeating her in the primaries, Obama conspicuously did not make Hillary his vice-presidential running mate. Hillary, it seemed, would be content with toiling in the Senate vineyard, and US presidential politics would live quietly ever after. Not so. The soap is back on the air. Will the professional and personal lives of the two Clintons intersect? Will Bill make mischief with foreign policy freelancing?

Obama's motives are under the microscope. Some see him as trying to head off a potential rival in 2012; others see it as an attempt to heal party divisions. But judging by his other rumoured cabinet picks, he's done the blindingly obvious. He's had the self-confidence to pick the best person for the job, Clintonian baggage and all.

more...

http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/commentators/rupert-cornwell/rupert-cornwell-coolly-calmly-obama-is-putting-together-a-remarkable-team-1031240.html

[BlooInBloo]

1. Cooly? Calmly? Remarkable? That doesn't sound like Obama....

Oh wait - yah it does.

I'm not sure how much weight I'd give to McConnell's assessment, of course - :rofl:

[Tarheel_Dem]

2. An excellent read. I just hope Obama can withstand the sniping from the....

left, because something tells me he's going to be under constant attack from his "allies", and the right will only have to sit back and watch us implode.

[democracy1st]

3. they probably never voted for Obama