Obama Tilts to Center, Inviting a Clash of Ideas

[ProSense]

News Analysis

Obama Tilts to Center, Inviting a Clash of Ideas

By DAVID E. SANGER
Published: November 21, 2008

WASHINGTON — President-elect Barack Obama won the Democratic nomination with the enthusiastic support of the left wing of his party, fueled by his vehement opposition to the decision to invade Iraq and by one of the most liberal voting records in the Senate.

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But the names racing through the ether in Washington about the choices to follow also suggest that Mr. Obama continues to place a premium on deep experience. He is widely reported to be considering asking Mr. Bush’s defense secretary, Robert M. Gates, to stay on for a year; and he is thinking about Gen. James L. Jones, the former NATO commander and Marine Corps commandant, for national security adviser, and placing Lawrence H. Summers, the former Treasury secretary whom Mr. Obama considered putting back in his old post, inside the White House as a senior economic adviser.

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The reason, several of Mr. Obama’s transition team members say, is that they believe that the new administration will have no time for a learning curve. With the country facing a deep recession or worse, global market turmoil, chaos in Pakistan and a worsening war in Afghanistan, “there’s going to be no time for experimentation,” a member of the Obama foreign policy team said.

That explains Mr. Obama’s first selection: Rahm Emanuel, another centrist Democrat and former member of the Clinton White House, as his chief of staff.

In some ways, the choices made so far are reminiscent of the way the last senator to be elected president, John F. Kennedy, chose a cabinet. As president-elect, Kennedy soon picked three top officials significantly more conservative than he was: Dean Rusk as secretary of state, Robert S. McNamara as secretary of defense and C. Douglas Dillon, a Republican, as secretary of the Treasury. They helped him navigate the Cuban missile crisis, but also got him bogged down in Vietnam.

Of all the choices Mr. Obama has made so far, it is the selection of Mrs. Clinton that appears the biggest gamble, in part because she has never had to engage in the give-and-take of high-stakes diplomacy, and in part because no one really knows how she will mesh with the Obama White House.

In her discussion with the president-elect, several members of his transition team said, Mrs. Clinton expressed no doubt that she could be a loyal member of the Obama team — though she was reportedly deeply conflicted about giving up her Senate seat and the independent power base it afforded her.

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Now the question is less one of ideological differences than whether a Clinton State Department could become something like Colin L. Powell’s: an alternative, though weak, power center that made little secret of its differences with the White House.

“Anyone who tells you they really know how this is going to work out,” one senior transition official said Thursday, “is telling less than the truth.”

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Video: Zbigniew Brzezinski on foreign policy and Obama's National Security team

[niceypoo]

1. It is obvious that Obama does not want a 'Yes man' culture

He isn't afraid to weigh outside opinions, hearing the pros and cons of whatever issue is at hand. This is in direct contrast to the GOP/Bush way of doing things where ideology decides everything, common sense be damned.

Finally, sanity.

[AtomicKitten]

2. Obama knows who he is and he's in charge.

The variable unknown here is whether or not Clinton can be a team player or whether she constructs an actual Clinton Wing of the Democratic Party in the State Department as a shadow government. We shall see what direction foreign policy/nat'l security goes, but I voted for Obama's vision, not hers.

[Joe Chi Minh]

3. It makes sense to move to the left gradually, given the power of

a lot of super rich not-so-nice-guys which still remains, even without the degree of political representation they'd like. As the economic crisis worsens his opportunities, indeed, the requirement for him to espouse identifiably left-wing policies (which Comrade Bush might be proud of, now I think of it) will become more and more compelling.

Obama has always, it seems, played the more reliable, less overtly confrontational, medium-term game. Although, of course, it is a desperate shame for people already in dire economic straits.

[ProSense]

8. True. There are also other concerns.

Miller said other foreign leaders would seize upon any perception of daylight between Clinton and Obama and “play it like a finely tuned violin.”

The important thing is that Obama is seen as being in charge and the international community perceives his message and the messenger as being on the same page.

As for gradual shifts, on some issues like climate change (and health care and other reform), we can't afford more incrementalism.

[Joe Chi Minh]

11. All of your post makes perfect sense to me. Your first point, I hadn't considered.

[liberalmuse]

4. For all those who are leery of Obama's picks...

think of this. Greenspan was a GOD under Clinton who became a Pariah under Bush. How is that possible? Oh yeah, because the President sets the tone, and the policy, and his appointees follow it. A President can take an ordinary man or woman to new heights. Or turn a hero into shit. Another example: Colin Powell.

[Cha]

5. Precisely~

So interesting.

[blm]

6. Greenspan was a GOD under Bush1, then a GOD under Clinton, and was STILL considered a GOD

when he left under Bush2....straight up until the blatant collapse of the economy.

[ProSense]

9. Exactly! n/t

[L0oniX]

14. Deregulation started with Clinton ...not to mention NAFTA. Oh ...and don't forget...

the bombed NY buildings on his shift ...and did he do anything about preventing future attacks on same building or city ...oh and so much for being compassionate toward the poor with his welfare reforms that didn't work. Maybe he was too busy getting head. Who needs these elite mutha fuckers who don't give a damn about the poor? I hate the Clinton's and their ugly stinking over privileged daughter too. Oh yea ...Greenspan didn't seem to have a problem with deregulation did he. I wish people would keep their Clinton idol worship to their selves but they won't because their life is so worthless that they have to cling to the glory of rich assholes ...they probably watch tv shit like American Idol too. Obama and his family are so far above the Clinton's.

:evilfrown:

[Forkboy]

7. Bad framing. He already was center.

And he's done nothing unexpected so far.

[ProSense]

10. I don't agree with the framing suggested by the title, especially

in the context of Obama's "team or rivals" concept.

[GreenPartyVoter]

15. Precisely

[RC]

12. Why is it that ANY Democrat that gets the publics attention, almost always

has the most Liberal voting record. Even Lieberman. What is what this? Obama is right of center, so how can he have anywhere near the most Liberal voting record? When I read misinformation like that I distrust the rest of the article. I's propaganda after that.

[ProSense]

13. "Mrs. Clinton had to accept that she might never become president"

Clinton Is Said to Accept Secretary of State Position:

Mrs. Clinton had to accept that she might never become president, a former aide said. “There’s a very small chance that she could run again,” he said. “You’re not going to be the president, so you want to make sure your next few years, which may be your last in public life, really make a mark.”

Two advisers to Mrs. Clinton said she was concerned about establishing her role in the administration before agreeing to the job. She wanted assurances that she would have direct access to Mr. Obama and not need to go through a national security adviser, they said. And she wanted the authority to pick her own staff at the State Department.

This was particularly important because her relationships with members of Mr. Obama’s foreign policy team fractured during the bruising primary season. Gregory B. Craig, a longtime friend of the Clintons who broke with them to back Mr. Obama and helped savage her foreign policy background during the primaries, was selected as White House counsel and removed from direct involvement with the secretary of state.

Mrs. Clinton wanted to avoid the situation that faced another celebrity chosen as secretary of state, Colin L. Powell, who found hawks like John R. Bolton given top jobs under him after he took the job under President Bush.

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