'O' puts A-team in security posts
Inter Lake editorial
Barack Obama's decision to keep Defense Secretary Robert Gates on the job and bring on political rival Hillary Clinton as secretary of state demonstrates a flexibility and realism that could serve him well in the next four years.
Generally, both picks are getting good reviews in media around the world and apparently with the American public. The Boston Globe this week reported on a poll finding that 71 percent of respondents approve of the Clinton pick and 83 percent back the selection of Gates.
The common thread is that both Clinton and Gates have a more centrist position on foreign policy and terrorism than Obama campaigned on. That may be a sign that Obama is moving to the middle to govern, as predicted by mainstream Democrats before the election.
Nonetheless, there are also distinct differences between Obama's choices for the top two Cabinet posts on national security, and with Hillary Clinton in particular, Obama could be said to be tempting fate.
Some deem her selection as a master stroke in the Lincoln tradition of keeping your rivals close, and it could prove to be a strong move in uniting a Democratic Party that includes strong support for Clinton and her husband, the former president. Yet there is also a political component to the pick which could eventually backfire if Clinton and Obama don't develop a strong personal chemistry.
The words "bold" and "gamble" are being frequently used to describe Obama's decision, largely because of the potential for Clinton to be either a defining or a defiant force in the Obama administration. Some other bold choices haven't gone too well. Colin Powell's State Department, for example, didn't exactly do any favors for President George W. Bush.
But Clinton could well be a strong asset for America abroad. Her best characteristic is that she is no pushover. She is qualified for the job, having traveled the world and been a direct witness to the foreign policy challenges faced by her husband's administration. And Clinton was not that far off from being elected president of the United States herself.
Gates, by contrast, has served in Republican administrations but is nonetheless a strikingly non-political figure. The chattering class likes to chatter about how his selection was a calculation to score Obama points for "reaching across the aisle."
But we think his pick was simply a smart move: Gates is widely acknowledged to be a highly competent technocrat who has a firm grasp of what's going on in two active theaters of war. Obama wants a troop drawdown in Iraq and success in Afghanistan, and Gates is the person who can find the best ways to achieve those goals.
President Obama will face some of the greatest challenges of any president in the past century. The team he has put together, both on national security and on the economy, could be the difference between success and failure. So far, most of the team passes muster. In January, we will begin to see if they can also govern effectively.