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Familiar faces

Several of Obama's possible picks are reassuring

Rocky Mountain News

Published November 24, 2008 at 12:05 a.m.

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Barack Obama's campaign mantra was "change you can believe in." His reported initial choices for several key administration positions, however, largely look like a Who's Who of the Washington establishment - including several familiar faces from the Clinton administration, along with the former first lady.

Some Obama supporters on the left are outraged that the new president would choose to head his foreign-policy team with people they consider "retreads" or apologists for the status quo. We have a somewhat different perspective: We appreciate that the president-elect, despite all the campaign rhetoric about how he would almost miraculously transform Washington, wants some seasoned veterans on hand.

Perhaps the more interesting question is what the Obama administration's approach to the war in Iraq will be if Sen. Hillary Clinton - who unlike Obama supported the war initially - becomes secretary of State and Robert Gates is retained as chief at the Defense Department. Gates is the civilian leader of the military forces now engaged in Afghanistan and Iraq. He's overseen the surge, which has clearly reversed the fortunes of the U.S.-led operations in Iraq.

Apparently Obama is suggesting there won't be an immediate or wrenching transformation in international affairs or military policy.

Giving a prominent role to Clinton and possibly Gates signals that Obama values both experience and a diversity of opinion within his Cabinet. Still, as recently as late summer, Obama continued to say the surge was not an effective long-term strategy for Iraq and that he would push for significant troop withdrawals by 2010. If Gates is asked to stay, it's hard to imagine he would accept the job if any sort of rapid removal of forces from Iraq is in the works that he thinks would risk recent successes.

Would Obama be repudiating his campaign promises by offering senior positions to Clinton and Gates? The anti-war left, which provided much of Obama's passionate support, sure thinks so.

"Obama ran his campaign around the idea the war was not legitimate, but it sends a very different message when you bring in people who supported the war from the beginning," Kelly Dougherty of the 54-chapter Iraq Veterans Against the War told the Los Angeles Times.

Early on, anti-war groups insisted that those top jobs go to people advocating a quick U.S. withdrawal, such as retiring GOP Sen. Chuck Hagel of Nebraska and New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson. (Reports Friday said Richardson would be tapped as secretary of Commerce.)

Although we agree that the time is coming for a serious drawdown of U.S. troops from Iraq, we're relieved Obama may have taken a more temperate approach than he sometimes advocated on the campaign trail. While Americans clearly grew tired of the Bush administration, they do not want to jeopardize recent successes in Iraq with a hasty retreat.

Comments

  • November 24, 2008

    6:49 a.m.

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    vudumom writes:

    Obama also said there would be no jobs for lobbyists in his administration. Change you can believe in?

  • November 24, 2008

    8:13 a.m.

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    freethinker07 writes:

    Remember 1988? Bush one said "It's the economy stupid." Then he raised taxes. Bush paid for his reversal of policy when he lost in 1992. By reaching out for the middle, he lost his core supporters and his balance.

    If Obama doesn't keep his promises, his current supporters will tear him up into little pieces, and republicans will spend the next four years happily chanting "I told you so."

  • November 24, 2008

    8:22 a.m.

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    BuffDriver writes:

    Obama railed against a '3rd Bush Administration'. Now it looks like a '3rd Clinton Administration'. Wonder who's in charge of picking the interns?

  • November 24, 2008

    8:42 a.m.

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    AngelontheSidelines writes:

    Obama will dress up continued occupation as withdrawal with security forces remaining. Belligerence toward Pakistan and ignorance to IAEA assessments of Iran's (lack of) nuclear weapons development, bode no change in American foreign policy. The labeling of Afghanistan as the good war bodes ill to any peace, every empire that tried to control Afghanistan has lost, does he think we can do any better?

    This is in addition to Israel first and volunteer Israeli Army fighter Rahmbo as his chief of staff. This guy's dad was a terrorist for Israel in their initial seizing of their promised land. Look for neolibs like Richard Holbrooke, Dennis Ross, John Brennan, or Jami Miscik all support expanded military action and rendition for torture as necessary for security.

    Now is the time to press Obama, and complain in places like here. The more we do now the less we must observe later.

  • November 24, 2008

    9:39 a.m.

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    enough321 writes:

    Hmm, that's weird. A President appointing accomplished professionals with graduate degrees from Yale, Harvard, Stanford, Cornell, Penn, etc. to positions that require that kind of drive, intelligence, and records of success.

    Yes, that is change we can believe in.

    Hey sideline, there's a leprechaun riding a unicorn in your yard carrying some magic beans and foreign policy advice for you.

  • November 24, 2008

    11:28 a.m.

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    Romanesco writes:

    "A President appointing accomplished professionals with graduate degrees from Yale, Harvard, Stanford, Cornell, Penn, etc. to positions that require that kind of drive, intelligence, and records of success."

    Wouldn't want any non-ivy league grads, now would we. <sarcasm>

  • November 24, 2008

    12:46 p.m.

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    Darwin writes:

    Ivy league grads, if memory serves me correctly (and it does) that is where most of the wall street crooks came from. Change? Yeah right, from one group of crooked elites to another group of crooked elites. At least BO is keeping his promise to spread the wealth. I think this is great, watching those on the left who believed what a politician said now crying foul.

  • November 24, 2008

    1:18 p.m.

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    claypoint2 writes:

    Why is it so difficult to grasp that Obama may be more interested in giving us competent government than in appointing cronies who have little or no experience in the areas for which they've been designated? Perhaps it's because George W. Bush did it so differently -- witness Mike Brown at FEMA. The fact that Obama is willing to reach across all sorts of aisles and appoint former rivals (like Hillary Clinton) and Republicans (like Robert Gates and Jim Jones) not only constitutes real change, it's also the kind of change we need. Thus far, Obama's choices reveal both widsom and self-confidence.

    But I voted for him, so don't take my word for it. Take it from David Brooks, a conservative columnist and longtime supporter of John McCain:

    http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/21/opi...

  • November 24, 2008

    1:26 p.m.

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    claypoint2 writes:

    I forgot to add that, in spite of all the accusations levied on Obama during the campaign for being hyper-liberal (they even called him a socialist!), he appears far less interested in pushing a particular ideology than in the pragmatics of doing a good job.

    By the way, that's exactly what he did when he served as President of the Harvard Law Review. A lot of his liberal friends expected to get appointed to the senior editor positions, but what he did instead was assemble the group that could put out the best publication. How's that for a change?

  • November 24, 2008

    1:28 p.m.

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    Brickmaker writes:

    to freethinker07

    George HW Bush never said "It's the economy stupid".

    From wikipedia:
    "It's the economy, stupid" was a phrase in American politics widely used during Bill Clinton's successful 1992 presidential campaign against George H.W. Bush. The phrase, coined by Clinton campaign strategist James Carville, refers to the notion that Clinton was a better choice because Bush had not adequately addressed the economy, which had recently undergone a recession.

    What George HW Bush did say that helped him lose was his promise of "read my lips, no new taxes".

  • November 24, 2008

    1:51 p.m.

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    MUC writes:

    Worked with a lot of those Ivy league kind of folks. Brilliant when it comes to the books but common sense and street smarts of a rock.

  • November 24, 2008

    10:02 p.m.

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    mooncuz writes:

    The writer forgets that during the campaign in one of the debates, Senator Clinton said she regretted her vote for the war in Iraq.

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