Cosmo Brown Changes My Mind

Commenter Cosmo Brown makes some sharp points about my last post and the Team of Rivals concept that's been floating around regarding Obama's cabinet. The concept is being thoughtlessly and uncritically talked about. As Brown notes, the point should be, how will dissent be dealt with between Obama and the cabinet members as well as among the cabinet. Lincoln has been hailed as a political genius for setting up his administration this way, but an op-ed in the Times today calls that seriously into question: what Lincoln did was neither new nor effective. It shows the big pitfalls of having rivals hanging around who have grievances and don't trust their relationships with the president or the rest of the cabinet. On this last point, Thomas Friedman has a great column on how, when it comes to a secretary of state, trust is essential. "When it comes to appointing a secretary of state, you do not want a team of rivals." He points out that the best, most powerful secretaries of the past few decades have been Baker and Kissinger. Any foreign leader who talked to them knew that by talking to them they were talking to the president. Thinking in this light, Clinton as secretary of state seems problematic: It's hard to imagine Obama and Clinton having a trusting relationship. They don't seem to be close, they had a sometimes bitter primary fight, Hillary might let her resentment get the best of her, and then, as always, there's Bill (that man is NEVER going away!)

In addition, she has revealed herself to be, with her health care plan in the early 90s and with her Presidential campaign, to be a terrible manager, breeding mistrust between her and Congress in her health plan and mistrust among her staff in her campaign. It doesn't bode well for her ability to manage an effective government bureaucracy and inspire loyalty among State Department staff.

So far it should be said that they seem to be behaving somewhat, at least in the fact that Bill has fairly readily given the Obama transition team all the information that it has asked for (and apparently would give more without much hesitation). Still, I'm a little worried. Clinton has abilities, and star power, which could be important -- I can imagine a world-famous person like herself would have greater status and pull with foreign leaders than a Madeleine Albright or Warren Christopher. (She is also very knowledgeable about the Middle East, at least according to Jeffrey Goldberg). Still, it remains to be seen whether she can really work under Obama and keep her ego in check. Will she undermine him? That may be a little extreme (she wants to succeed for herself as much as him), but will she really work as a loyal team player? Does she even see the issues in basically the same way as he does?

Lastly, Steve Clemons has a more positive view of this whole thing here. It makes some decent and some mediocre points, and I'm still skeptical.

Teams, Of Transitions And Rivals

From everything I've read so far, I just have to say that I have been very happy, even excited by Obama's transition process: He is focusing first on the White House staff, not the Cabinet (a mistake Bill Clinton made); he has appointed a total player, wonk and loyalist as Chief of Staff who seems to be about getting things done and knowing how to do it in a place like Washington; he has already begun to signal or outright state what his first priorities will be (the economy and energy); and, by the fact that he is considering having Gates and Clinton in his Cabinet he is assembling a "team of rivals" Linclon-style, which I love. This is a man who is not afraid of having a lot of strong and differing advice around him. Though it just occurred to me that Bush's cabinet looked this way at first -- remember that Rumsfeld the heavyweight was brought in to counter Powell the heavyweight -- it feels like Obama's choices, if they are Gates and Clinton, go much farther. First, Gates is a Republican, so this is a true oppositional voice. Also, he is a holdover from the Bush administration. Obama wants the whatever wisdom the Bush administration has accumulated inside his administration (unlike the Bushies who seemed to do everything the opposite of Clinton). Second, Clinton is a mega-star, known the world over. Her reputation and level of fame rivals his. To have someone who he ran against in a harsh campaign in his cabinet is a sign of real maturity. In this context the pick of Emanuel also looks good: such strong personalities need a strong hand to control them. In the first four Bush years Condi Rice got steamrolled as National Security Advisor (of course, it didn't help to have Cheney doing whatever he wanted). A strong chief of staff seems to signal a strong desire for centralized decision-making.