Biden Outlines Plans to Do More With Less Power

Damon Winter/The New York Times -Vice President-elect Joseph R. Biden Jr., in his transitional office on Wednesday, had critical words for his predecessor

One thing about Biden: he has a way with words.

“The proof of the pudding is in the eating,” Mr. Biden said in an interview Wednesday. “The Bush-Cheney relationship hasn’t tasted very good. Not a single person you can name for me” — at this point, he leaned forward in his chair, jabbed his finger in the air and punctuated his words sharply. “Look at me, now — a single one can tell you that the pudding has tasted good. Not one. Name me one serious person, liberal, conservative, Democrat, Republican.”

He said he would bring more to the job than any of his predecessors, except possibly Lyndon B. Johnson. “I know as much or more than Cheney,” Mr. Biden said. “I’m the most experienced vice president since anybody.”

But he is a savvy politician.

“The only value of power is the effect, the efficacy of its use,” Mr. Biden said. “And all the power Cheney had did not result in effective outcomes.”

An interesting assessment:

“Cheney essentially served the president as chief of staff,” said David Axelrod, Mr. Obama’s senior adviser. “That’s not the function that Barack Obama was looking to fill in his vice president.”

Obama's Regulatory Czar Likely to Set a New Tone

This article in the WSJ's edition of 8 January discusses Cass Sunstein (Nudge, a book co-written with Richard Thaler, I found fascinating reading). A phrase caught my eye; in fact, more than once the language used is critical.

WASHINGTON -- Cass Sunstein, a Harvard Law School professor who pioneered efforts to design regulation around the ways people behave, will be named the Obama administration's regulatory czar, a transition official said Wednesday.

Mr. Sunstein, a friend of President-elect Barack Obama from their faculty days at the University of Chicago law school, will mark a sharp departure for the White House Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs. Although obscure, the post wields outsize power. It oversees regulations throughout the government, from the Environmental Protection Agency to the Occupational Safety and Health Administration. Obama aides have said the job will be crucial as the new administration overhauls financial-services regulations, attempts to pass universal health care and tries to forge a new approach to controlling emissions of greenhouse gases.

Under President George W. Bush, the office has been dominated by administrators with a strong deregulatory bent. Activists saw it as the place where environmental, workplace safety, consumer products and other areas of regulation often stalled or died.

Deregulatory bent means conservative ideology, business-friendly.

Susan Dudley, the current administrator, had served at the Mercatus Center at George Mason University, a free market-oriented think tank, where she directed the Regulatory Studies Program from 2003 to 2006. Mr. Bush's first administrator, John Graham, championed cost-benefit analyses of regulations.

Free-market oriented? The sort of free market that gave us the mess we're in? And championed cost-benefit analyses of regulations?

Mr. Sunstein, a prolific academic with wide-ranging interests, may be best known for advancing a field known as "law and behavioral economics" that seeks to shape law and policy around the way research shows people actually behave. The theory builds on earlier approaches developed at the University of Chicago law school that sought to harmonize regulatory law with free-market economics. Although widely embraced by conservatives, critics said it failed to account for the sometimes less-than-rational aspects of human behavior.

In an interview with The Wall Street Journal last year, Mr. Sunstein said Mr. Obama was intrigued by "law and behavioral economics" as an approach to regulation that would avoid ideological extremes.

That is much clearer than championed cost-benefit analyses of regulations.

Mr. Obama believes in "doing law in a way that's realistically based on human behavior," Mr. Sunstein said. "He's a University of Chicago Democrat, so he's very attuned to the virtue of free markets and the risks of free-market regulation. He's not an old-style Democrat who's excited about regulations" for their own sake.

Mr. Sunstein said the Earned Income Tax Credit, which provides money to the working poor, was "a way of lifting people out of poverty" superior to old-style welfare payments.

Excellent point.

Last year, Mr. Sunstein joined the Harvard faculty, where his wife, Samantha Power, also teaches. Ms. Power was a foreign-policy adviser to Mr. Obama who was forced off the campaign after she called Sen. Hillary Clinton a "monster." Mrs. Clinton has been nominated to be Mr. Obama's secretary of state.

I think Power is back, or will soon be, with Obama.

Obama Taps Killefer For Watchdog Role

Another good idea.

Obama Taps Killefer for Watchdog Role

Nancy Killefer will be chief performance officer, a new White House position intended to eliminate government waste.

Obama a Moderate?

The Wall Street Journal is a paragon of the Right, the perfect embodiment of the ideal of anti-leftist and anti-Liberal political thought. It bashes Democrats reflexively. Unfailingly, it does not like, and castigates, what Democrats stand for, do, and propose.

Today's lead editorial, Obama's Secretary of Earmarks - His Transportation nominee is a spending superstar, is typical.

Yet every once in a while it must admit that perhaps the world is not exactly as it sees and proposes. Witness an Op-Ed piece in today's edition: Obama Picks a Moderate on Education. Wha? Obama picked a moderate? Not a socialist? Whoa, Nelly.

Barack Obama picked Arne Duncan only partly for his skills on the basketball court. As secretary of education, he will be running one of the administration's most important finesse games.

The Obama administration will have a number of basketball players. Maybe the could challenge Putin to a five-on-five.

Considering the reviews from the right and the left, you might be confused about whether Mr. Duncan is a signal that Mr. Obama's administration is lining up behind the reformers or supporting the status quo.

He does support concepts that were anathema to liberals until recently; many liberals still don't dare buck the teacher's union, nor support ideas that conservatives champion. Yet some young idealists in the Democratic party want to recapture what should always have been a natural issue for Democrats: helping underprivileged kids get out of failing public schools.

I am not young, but I do think change is needed. Charter schools? Maybe so. But I still wonder why public education is not reformed internally, rather than letting remain a failing system.

Mr. Duncan is certainly no bomb thrower. Thank goodness for that.

A group called Democrats for Education Reform ... are part of the growing voice for reform in the party. DFER is known to cheer Democrats brave enough to support charter schools and other methods of extending options to parents. Joe Williams, the group's executive director, predicted that Mr. Duncan will help break the "ideological and political gridlock to promote new, innovative and experimental ideas."

Three cheers for that. And for this: Cory Booker of Newark, N.J., said that "As Democrats we have been wrong on education, and it's time to get it right."

Michelle Rhee is Washington, D.C., schools Chancellor (and über reformer). She has closed schools, fired teachers, proposed bonuses. Idea the union reflexively, and (I'd say) stupidly opposes.

Washington, D.C.'s Adrian Fenty, a strong backer of Ms. Rhee's effort to negotiate tough terms with the unions, remarked that the politics of school reform are changing fast.

Others are getting on board: Jesse Jackson Jr., Representative James Clyburn of S.C. are two of those challenging the orthodoxy.

It's all a bit delicate, which makes Mr. Duncan Mr. Obama's man for a good reason. He's known for a flexibility that allows him to float between the traditional Democratic strongholds and the new wave of reformers in the party. With proper implementation, Mr. Obama could accomplish on education reform what President Bill Clinton did for welfare reform – taking a previously Republican issue and transforming it from within the left.

Clearly the field of education needs to be shaken up, changed, reconstituted. Even when my kids were in enriched programs (with a disgusting school plant that included faded shades and ugly, beat up desks), I wondered why every kid in the educational system was not getting the same education.

Mr. Duncan is a reformer at heart, if one who works collegially within the system. But in the end, much will depend on his boss. Whether Mr. Obama is an artful fence walker or a real agent of change – on schools or anything else – is a mystery the coming year may finally clear up.

The man is not even in office and some are already criticizing Obama; even this WSJ person (a senior editorial writer at the Journal), who wants to give him some slack can not end without expressing some skepticism. She will be surprised.

Obama decries lack of decorum in politics

Hillary at State, Bob Gates at Defense, Gaithner at Treasury; President-elect Barack Obama has made appointments that are called, variously, unexpected, reassuring, disappointing, to use but a few terms bandied about the media. After being called a socialist and a pal of terrorists, domestic brand, he has shown himself to be somewhat innovative, of a different mold, unorthodox.

What he is showing is that he can not pinned down with easy labels. Not a socialist, not a liberal, not a moderate, what he is showing is that he is practical, pragmatic, unusual.

Now comes word of his choice of a preacher to lead prayer at his inauguration: Rick Warren, a conservative, outspoken opponent of gay marriage. Of course, gays and liberals are generally and loudly expressing outrage, disappointment, and everything in between. They're missing the point: Obama is not carrying out their agenda, any one's agenda other than his own.

CNN has a story: The irony of the furor over Warren's selection to deliver the invocation at Barack Obama's inaugural ceremony is that the California minister first drew notice for his determination to expand the evangelical agenda beyond hot-button social issues like opposition to same-sex marriage.

Of course, every one has a story about it. The Wall Street Journal's story:

Rev. Rick Warren is discovering that it's hard to be both America's Pastor and a Leader of Religious Conservatives. Barack Obama's selection of Mr. Warren to deliver the invocation at the inauguration has infuriated many Obama supporters -- especially advocates of gay marriage -- in part because of comments Mr. Warren made in a recent interview with me for Beliefnet and The Wall Street Journal.

So on the one hand you have Mr. Warren, in effect, equating gay marriage to marriages based on incest, pedophilia and polygamy. But if you look at the whole exchange on gay issues -- and, indeed, the entire interview -- you see Mr. Warren trying in other ways to chart a moderate path.

Pretty explosive stuff. But that is not all there is to Warren. Of course, gay advocates can't see past that.

He started by acknowledging that divorce is a much bigger threat to the American family than gay marriage -- and chiding fellow conservatives for focusing on gay marriage more. He also said he supported civil partnership laws, a position which just got a top official fired from the National Association of Evangelicals. And later in the interview he said that Christianity has been harmed by religious conservatives focusing too much on politics.


Mr. Warren does have legitimate claim to being a powerfully influential spiritual leader. His "The Purpose Driven Life" is the best-selling non-fiction book in history. His decision to reverse-tithe -- he keeps 10% and gives away 90% -- is inspiring to many, forcing all of us to ask: Am I doing enough?

He spends much of his time cradling the most destitute children in the world and trying to convince American Christians -- especially conservatives -- to do more. He speaks about his faith with a sense of joy that is infectious and he acknowledges his own spiritual doubts in a way that gives permission to followers to cultivate an intellectually-honest spiritual journey.

An interesting person, to say the least. And quite an interesting choice.

Bypassing mainstream media

In a story about the Obama administration having plans to bypass the mainstream media by posting directly to YouTube, reference is made to a current State Department blog with the unfortunate name of Dipnote. Coulda thought about it a little more, I'd say.

As it turns out, Sean McCormack, the State Department spokesman, is ahead of the game on the whole skip-the-press maneuver. Mr. McCormack started filing posts from far-flung regions more than a year ago during trips with his boss, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice.

Of course, one would have to know about the blog to read it.

That was bad enough, as far as reporters covering the State Department were concerned. But reporters got even more ticked off when, Mr. McCormack gave readers of the State Department blog, Dipnote, a firsthand account in September of the historic meeting between Ms. Rice and the Libyan leader Muammar Qaddafi in Tripoli even before he filled in reporters traveling with him on what had happened.

Wish I'd known about it; the blog, that is. A quick look at it now shows, inte second entry, a familiar figure:

Question of the Week: Where Should the Secretary Make Her Final Official Visit? Posted by DipNote Bloggers on Dec 12, 2008 - 03:11 PM During her tenure, Secretary Rice has traveled over one million miles in 88 days to 83 countries (as of September 2008). Secretary Rice has said, “There is no greater honor than representing your country; it’s the best job in government.”

Where should the Secretary make her final official visit? Why?

Okay: it's cute. Nice pic of Condy climbing the airplane's stairs (notice the reflection of, no, the two people in front of the jet engine). But I don't think that the media has to worry too much about this blog becoming a major news outlet for too many people.

And finally, on Oct. 31, came the icing on the cake, when Mr. McCormack unveiled “Briefing 2.0” in the press briefing room of the State Department. —Standing before flat screen television monitors and high-tech looking computer screens Mr. McCormack didn’t take questions from the press, but — gasp! — from the public. And then he put it on YouTube.

Gasp, indeed. Wonder how many dweebs were watching.

It’s not clear yet if Mr. Obama will ever take to YouTube to take questions on his timetable for withdrawal from Iraq. But that issue, interestingly, did come up on Tuesday when Mr. Obama met and held a sort-of press conference with a bunch of grade-school students at Dodge Renaissance Academy in Chicago. (Mr. Obama took more questions from the pint-sized group than he had done from reporters in a press conference just a few minutes earlier.)

He's already acting presidential, going straight to the people.

Mr. Obama’s aides do say that they intend to make full use of the millions of email address that they have collected over the course of the campaign. The Obama-Biden Web site, has an “open for questions” spot that was supposed to be a “two-way dialogue between the transition team and the change.gov community,” according to the Web site.

Some of the questions on the “open for questions” site on Wednesday:

Q: “Will you lift the ban on Stem Cell research in your first 100 days in office?”--James M., Nashville, TN:

A: “President-elect Obama is a strong supporter of Federal funding for responsible stem cell research and he has pledged to reverse President Bush’s restrictions.

I'll wait and see.

Solis to Be Obama’s Pick for Labor

One more post to be filled. Yesterday I had read some reports (read leaks, but from whom?) that Governor Jennifer Granholm was slated for appointment to the Labor post. Now I see reports that wasn't interested. And now reports are out that the post will be filled by a Represenative from California.

Representative Hilda Solis, a California Democrat, is President-elect Barack Obama’s choice to be Labor secretary, according to Democratic officials.

Not a name I'm familiar with, frankly.

Solis, 51, is a four-term member of Congress with an extensive record on environmental issues. Her legislative accomplishments include spearheading a bill to provide workers with training for “green-collar” employment. Such initiatives are a hallmark of Obama’s plan to address the country’s energy needs and create new jobs.

I am not sure why a person's age is always reported. A liberal Democrat from California, who is a Hispanic woman. It'll be interesting to look at the Cabinet as a whole and break it down.

Solis, who grew up in a union household in Los Angeles County, is a favorite of labor groups, including the Service Employees International Union.

A conciliatory gesture to labor. Perhaps even more, a signal.

Labor officials have been grumbling recently that some of Obama’s Cabinet choices lack strong labor ties. Union chiefs also question why Obama didn’t announce his choice for Labor secretary when he introduced his core economic team, putting them on alert about what kind of influence the Labor Department will have in the new administration.

A lot of liberals, a lot of Democrats have been grumbling about Obama appoinments, while Republicans and moderates have been largely, even almost completely, quiet. Of course, the right wing is trying to tar Obama with a Blagojevich brush (coz they got nothing else to pin on him for now, rumours of his Communism having been proven wholly exaggerated, er, false).

Solis would succeed Elaine Chao, who has held the job for all eight years of the Bush administration, making her the longest-serving Labor secretary since Frances Perkins under President Franklin D. Roosevelt.

That's an interesting tidbit.

Environmentalists Wary of Interior Pick

This is one reason why Obama is doing so well: independent picks. Nice tie, I do declare.

Salazar will inherit an agency demoralized by years of scandal, political interference and mismanagement.

Clinton's Interior Secretary was Bruce Babbitt. His successor was Gale Norton; hers Dirk Kempthorne.

He must deal with the sharp tension between those who seek to exploit public lands for energy, minerals and recreation and those who want to preserve the lands. He will be expected to restore scientific integrity to a department where it has repeatedly been compromised. He will be responsible for ending the department’s coziness with the industries it regulates. And he will have to work hard to overcome skepticism among many environmentalists about his views on resource and wildlife issues.

He'll have a full in-box, that's for sure.

One senior Interior Department executive described the job Mr. Salazar has been chosen for as “the booby prize of the Cabinet.”

Quite a challenge he took on. But surely he wanted the job.

As Mr. Obama introduced Mr. Salazar and Tom Vilsack, the former Iowa governor tapped to be secretary of agriculture, at a press conference Wednesday in Chicago, he said their responsibility would be to balance the protection of farms and public lands against the need to find new sources of energy.

I like how Obama has paired up appointments for related positions.

Mr. Salazar, wearing his customary ten-gallon hat and string tie, said that his job entails helping the nation address climate change through a “moon shot” on energy independence. But that would include not just the development of “green” energy sources like wind power, but also the continued domestic development of coal, oil and natural gas, fossil fuels that generate greenhouse gases when they are burned.

A World of Issues Waiting

Team Obama

Never mind Team of Rivals; thus far, this team looks real good.

Sally Ryan for The New York Times

President-elect Barack Obama named former Federal Reserve Chairman Paul Volcker, left, chairman-designate of the Economic Recovery Advisory Board. Austan Goolsbee, center, will lead the staff of the advisory board.

The Closest of Frenemies

Were the idea, having coming this far and become this public, to fall apart now, the ensuing humiliation would be grievous and mutual for Obama and Clinton. Too grievous and too mutual, that is, for them to let it happen.

That was exactly what I felt soon after word was leaked: it would not have been made public if there were doubt on either side. And every pundit has an opinion, and confidence therein, as to what the appointment means: a disaster, a stroke of genius, little in between.

But what strikes me as most interesting about it—along with the other appointments Obama has made so far—is what it suggests about the president-elect, from his conception of his embryonic administration to the size and contours of his ego.

It strikes me that most commentators are so sure of their opinions, that they are not taking time to reflect. This commentator does some reflecting. After outlining the commentary of Tom Friedman, David Ignatius and David Broder (many at MSNBC and CNN quote Friedman as if he were a sage, rather than a columnist), he posits the strengths of the appointment.

But for Obama and his inner circle—notably Rahm Emanuel, his new chief of staff, whose fingerprints are all over the Clinton gambit—Hillary brings an array of strengths to the table, and many of what critics see as her problematic qualities can be viewed instead as assets. Her existing relationships with world leaders and her global star power would allow her to walk into foreign capitals and deal with the president or prime minister on level footing. And in the face of a cratering economy likely to consume the first year (or more) of Obama’s term, handing off the foreign-policy legwork to a savvy, tough, high-profile surrogate with roundly acknowledged expertise on the relevant issues holds no small appeal.

And more:

Then there are the more subtle advantages to picking Hillary. Foreign policy is prone to internecine conflict in any administration, with the secretaries of State and Defense, the national-security adviser, and often the vice-president all jockeying for position. And Obama’s regime—with Joe Biden in the building and Robert Gates likely to remain atop the Pentagon—will be no exception. But Clinton is much closer to Biden than most people realize; that campaign gaffe of his about her making a better V.P. than him was more like a Freudian slip. And Gates, like many Republicans, is said to respect Hillary immensely; indeed, no Democrat is regarded more highly by the opposition and the generals.

Good points about Clinton and Biden. Fascinating, and, to me, surprising how highly regarded she is.

Little of this, it should be noted, is true of the other shortlist candidates to run State. John Kerry and Bill Richardson are both fine men, qualified on paper for the job. But Senator Pompous has long had an intensely competitive relationship with Biden (“They’re like brothers—in every sense,” reports a Biden confidant) and is unbeloved by the GOP. And does anyone really think that Governor Doofus (or, if you prefer James Carville’s formulation, Governor Judas) possesses anything close to Clinton’s candlepower? Or gonads, for that matter? You can bet your last dollar that Emanuel, for one, does not.

Kerry? Mistake. And I love Bill Richardson, but I can see the points made.

Finally, there’s the Machiavellian angle: Obama playing the prince by pulling the old king and queen close. As Dee Dee Myers observed, her former boss is sure to cause Obama heartburn whether he is in the huddle or on the sidelines, musing about the new president’s (inevitable) missteps. “The question is not how to keep him at arm’s length,” she blogged, “but rather how best to harness his prodigious talent in service of shared goals, rather than political mischief.” The odds of doing that—and, incidentally, banishing any stray fantasies of a nomination challenge in 2012 from HRC’s mind—go up by putting his wife on Team Obama.

Bubba won't be disrespecting the Obama Administration too much if Hillary is part of it. Very good point. One Chris Matthews is too hysterical to consider, let alone think of.

The obvious question is why Hillary would do it. What’s she thinking? What’s her game? No doubt part of the reason her people began leaking word that she’s not certain she wants the gig was to cushion the blow in case the Bubba vet turned ugly.

Spin is a Clinton game, and they play it well.

Assuming that Clinton and Obama get to yes, Eric Holder is a go for attorney general, and the Gates assumption holds, the upper echelon of Obama’s Cabinet will be nearly full: only one of the big four, Treasury, remains an unleaked mystery. The Clinton choice matters here. With Obama already catching flak from his base for being too Clinton-centric, Hillary at State probably reduces Larry Summers’s chances of winding up at Treasury. The more likely pick seems to be Jon Corzine, whose stock has risen despite some mildly hairy vetting issues, as Obama transition officials have come to think that public-communications skills are key to the job in a time of economic chaos. (“See Hank Paulson? That’s what we don’t want,” says one person involved in the transition.)

Treasury didn't seem such a mystery: Gaithner or Summers. And Gaithner is it. Summers is inside the White House. So the assumption about Corzine was wrong.

So what do all these and Obama’s other appointments tell us? First, that the “team of rivals” meme is vastly overdone. Maybe Obama will appoint one more Republican (Chuck Hagel as U.N. ambassador?), but by and large his administration will be filled with politically like-minded folk. His White House will be chockablock with players (David Axelrod, Pete Rouse, Valerie Jarrett, Jim Messina) central to his campaign, his Cabinet heavy with elected officials (former senator Tom Daschle for Health and Human Services, Arizona governor Janet Napolitano for Homeland Security, Kansas governor Kathleen Sebelius for Labor) who endorsed him early in the primaries.

The liberals bought that meme, as did pundits. Obama underestimates what Lincoln faced; why bring in Hillary? Missed the point.

The thread that binds these names together isn’t ideology but a devotion to a kind of hard-nosed, even ruthless pragmatism. Moreover, Obama’s appointments to critical posts reflect an inclination toward people with deep institutional expertise and major-league political chops, who can effectively drive or implement an agenda.

Rather than a Marxist, a socialist, a lightweight or naive, Obama is proving he is shrewd, and a great politician. While Palin is speaking in front of a turkey processing station, he is organizing his government.

Picking Emanuel was all about mastering Congress, Daschle about actually passing health-care reform (as opposed to think-tanking the perfect, elegant policy solution, à la the Clinton effort in 1993–94). Keeping Gates is about getting out of Iraq without letting the country descend into chaos. The putative Clinton pick carries hints of a similar raison d’être. You can easily imagine Obama telling Hillary: A deal between the Israelis and the Palestinians—go bring that sucker home.

If she does bring it off, her name goes into the history books, for having accomplished something even President Bubba could not and did not.

But choosing Hillary demonstrates more than merely get-her-done, mission-driven hardheadedness. It demonstrates that Obama has finally learned the political power of magnanimity—or least the perception thereof.

See also Lieberman, Joseph, Senator.

It demonstrates strength, whereas selecting her as his running mate would have displayed the opposite (the stories would all have been about how he did it because he had no choice). And it demonstrates a level of self-confidence remarkable even in someone who just won the presidency.

Shrewd: to make a choice because he wanted to, not because it seemed right. Shrewd: astute: marked by practical hardheaded intelligence.

One of the cardinal rules of the Beltway is that you never appoint a subordinate who, for all practical purposes, can’t be fired. Colin Powell was very nearly such an appointment, and George W. Bush came to regret it. Hillary Clinton would be another. Obama is wagering that Clinton will do his bidding and not pursue her own agenda because she will see that her future—in electoral politics, in how she’s treated in the history books—will be bound up with his success. He’s not just bringing her inside the tent; he is making her a tent-pole. This strategy is either shrewd or delusional. But timid it is not.

For Treasury, Geithner Said to Be Choice; Wall St. Cheers

I was rooting for Geithner. Summers's brilliance can't be denied, nor will it be wasted, but Geithner is a magnificent choice. Same age as Obama (though at 53, merely 6 years older than the other two, Summers can hardly be called old), he has attributes which work: he has a great deal of experience (a Summers protege from the days Larry worked for President Clinton; president of the New York Fed); Wall Street likes and respects him; he represents continuity; and he represents change. Brilliant choice.

A phrase jumped out at me from the story on the Times website this evening; the article discusses the influence and protégés of Robert Rubin (Treasury Secretary under President Clinton, Goldman Sachs alum, centrist):

Michael Froman, Mr. Rubin’s former Treasury chief of staff and Mr. Obama’s classmate at Harvard Law School, is heading the economics personnel search for the transition. Mr. Froman’s head-hunting deputy is Mr. Rubin’s son, James Rubin.

Obama's Harvard Law classmate; Rubin's former chief of staff. Obama is part of the nation's elite by virtue of his Harvard Law degree, and he's tapping his network for his transition and Administration, as he tapped it for contributiond and support for his candidacies.

More and more it becomes apparent that Obama is center-left, the emphasis on center, and not left of it; that he has extensive contacts, and that his organizational skills are superb. That is one of the details that impresses me most: his campaign for the nomination, his campaign for the Presidency, and his transition and Cabinet-building, are all prime examples of magnificent organization.

Palin derided Obama's experience as a community organizer, and some of the masses responded lustily to the insult: community organizer was used as code for black, urban, and poor, as well as liberal, means to insult the urban poor and those who work to help them, liberal intellectuals.

Clearly the ability to organize efficiently is being shown to be a valuable skill. In his campaigns, and now in his transition to the Presidency, Barack Obama is showing his mettle.

Yet it is not only the Republican right wing that derides centrist Rubinism, to coin a term.

The Rubin wing of the Democratic Party has long been disparaged by liberals and union leaders as being too concerned with balanced budgets and free trade. But much of the ideological tension in the party has dissipated as the economy has weakened, and Mr. Obama has signaled that he intends to spend what it takes to get the economy back on track.

What Obama is showing is pragmatism. Yes, he tends to move to the slight left of center on some issues, to the left of center on other issues, but his imprint is clear: what works is what will get done.

Mr. Geithner also seems to fit Mr. Obama’s emphasis on “post-partisanship.” Associates say Mr. Geithner is an independent, though he was a Republican when he first was a staff member at the Treasury Department in the late 1980s under Presidents Ronald Reagan nd George Bush. After college, he worked in the New York-based international consulting firm headed by Henry A. Kissinger.

There are those associates again. But I do declare that Gaithner greatly impresses me.

After leaving the Treasury Department, Mr. Geithner worked at the International Monetary Fund until he was hired in 2003 as president of the New York Fed.

How does someone just get hired as the New York Fed President? He must have had some resume. I think highly of him, and think his appointment continues a strong record for the Obama transition of competency, even brilliance (see Clinton, Hillary Rodham).

Larry Downing/Reuters

Timothy F. Geithner of the Federal Reserve Bank.

Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images

Lawrence H. Summers might become a senior White House adviser instead of returning to the Treasury Department.

Obama leaks

At 3.37pm, this headline appears:

US Stocks Rally on Report Geithner to Be Treasury Secretary

Bloomberg - 13 minutes ago

By Eric Martin Nov. 21 (Bloomberg) -- US stocks rose and the Standard & Poor’s 500 Index rebounded from an 11-year low as NBC News reported President-elect Barack Obama will nominate New York Federal Reserve Bank chief Timothy Geithner to head the Treasury.

Over at the NY Times, this headline appears:
Clinton Decides to Accept Post at State Dept., Confidants Say

By PETER BAKER 5 minutes ago Hillary Rodham Clinton will give up her Senate seat and accept the nomination for secretary of state after talks with President-elect Barack Obama about her role, two confidants said.

Why did she accept? Mrs. Clinton came to her decision after additional discussion with President-elect Barack Obama about the nature of her role and his plans for foreign policy, said one of the confidants, who insisted on anonymity to discuss the situation.

After what is described as a general first meeting, a second meeting had more substance, and she felt good about it, said one of two Clinton confidants.

A second Clinton associate confirmed that her camp believes they have a done deal. Senior Obama advisers said Friday morning that the offer had not been formally accepted and no announcement would be made until after Thanksgiving. But they said they were convinced that the nascent alliance was ready to be sealed.

As secretary of state, Mrs. Clinton will have had a powerful platform to travel the world and help repair relations with other countries strained after eight years of President Bush’s policies. But at the same time, she will now have to subordinate her own agenda and ambitions to Mr. Obama’s and sacrifice the independence that comes with a Senate seat and the 18 million votes she collected during their arduous primary battle.

There are those 18 million votes again; conventional wisdom. Obama got more, and he got elected President.

As for Geithner:

“This news could really give the stock market a badly needed shot in the arm,” Chris Rupkey, chief financial economist at Bank of Tokyo-Mitsubishi UFJ Ltd. in New York, wrote in an e-mail to clients. Geithner is a “fantastic choice to help lead the financial markets out of the wilderness.”

Not too bad.

Senator? Secretary of State?

I happen to think that the Obama organization is managing the news cycle perfectly. Pundits, such as Chris Matthews and Rachel Maddow, are agonizing over the Clinton drama being played out over the airwaves, in newspapers, and on the electronic news network. Why, they wonder, are the Clintons front and center? What ever happened to no-drama-Obama? This is change?

I believe that they are part of the show that the Obama team is producing and directing with aplomb (complete confidence and self-assurance), and expertly. Who coul dhave failed to guess that the Clintons would leak all over the place? (Last night Chris Matthews remarked with incredulity how much of a source of leaked news the Wall Street Journal has become for Democrtas.) Who would not have known that the Clinton drama would be played out before the world?

Obama and his team would not have been so foolish and naive, now are they. It was not accidentally that the first leak of the Clinton trip to Chicago occured before the G-20 summit; releasing it then was purposeful. As I see it, either an Obama source leaked it, or just as credibly, the invitation was made at that particular time, with the expectation that not only would there be a Clinton leak, but that the Senator would be seen by the media, and the story would inflate rapidly. As it has.

Why involve her? Chris Matthews admitted, he of a thousand opinions and confidence to the point of arrogance, that he is baffled. Others continually talk about The Team of Rivals, the Kearns Goodwin book-inspired discussion of doing as Lincoln did: putting his rivals in the Cabinet, keeping one's friends close and one's enemies closer; or, as attributed the LBJ, rather having her inside the tent pissing out, than outside the tent pissing in.

But there is little original thinking being done. The same concepts are bandied about, repeated, agonized over, and have become conventional wisdom. The only original thoughts I've heard the last few days came from Richard Wolffe and Howard Fineman, both of Newsweek, whom I see on MSNBC. Matthews hardly lets Fineman, or anyone else talk, without many interruptions.

The opinions of these two are different, and, I think, more accurate, but because they are outside the confines of conmventional wisdom, are not picked up on.

Here's a story on the http://www.msnbc.msn.com website today:

Just how much 'change' is coming? Nov. 21: A star-studded panel weighs in on how President-elect Barack Obama is handling the assembly of a new cabinet and how much change Americans will see in Washington.

The point is being missed: Obama said change from Bush. If he does not want to form his government with novices and inexperienced folks, then he has to get people who served in the Clinton Administration.

So consider this article's geadline: An Option for Clinton: Enhanced Senate Role. There is so much spin going on that it is easy to get dizzy.

Democratic leaders in the Senate are prepared to give Senator Clinton a still-undefined leadership role there if she does not become secretary of state, Democratic officials close to the situation said Thursday.

And of course it is said this happened before the President-elect approach to Senator Clinton. SO who leaked this one? Smells Clintonite. Could be an Obama ally.

Although advisers to Mr. Obama have said he has not made a formal offer, most Democrats believe the decision is hers to make, and friends said Thursday that she was wavering. One friend said Mrs. Clinton decided late Wednesday to say no, reasoning that she would have more freedom in the Senate. By midday Thursday, the friend said, she was “back in the indecisive column again.” By the end of the day, another associate said she could accept by Friday.

Now there is a Clinton leak: a friend? Sure. And that's vintage Clinton: public drama. But they are not in control, so she is being careful.

At the end of a confused day in which even Mr. Obama’s advisers seemed unsure what was happening, a transition official reached out to reporters Thursday night to say that the president-elect’s team believed things were on track with Mrs. Clinton and that her nomination could be announced after Thanksgiving. The decision could affect the composition of Mr. Obama’s overall national security team as he tries to balance personalities and experience. The formation of that team appeared fluid Thursday. A senior Democratic adviser said Mr. Obama had talked with a retired Marine general, James L. Jones, former commander of NATO, about serving as secretary of state or national security adviser.

A counter-leak. So Washington is pinning in feverish speculation about whether the two former rivals for the Democratic presidential nomination would team up. Mrs. Clinton was keeping counsel only with a tight circle of confidants, leaving even prominent veterans of the Clinton political operation guessing as to her intentions.

Spinning is a perfect word for the drma playing out in the heart of American politics.

But driving her consideration, friends said, is a sense of disenchantment with the Senate, where despite her stature she remains low in the ranks of seniority that governs the body. She was particularly upset, they said, at the reception she felt she received when she returned from the campaign after collecting 18 million votes and almost becoming the first woman nominated for president by a major party.

Another Clinton leak: she was not greeted as a returning conqueror, so she is upset. Yet she is unsure whether she wants to leave the Senate, lose her independence, and become a Cabinet member.

I'd say Obama has her in a quandary, painted into a corner, yet giving her a way out. He is in control.

Doug Mills/The New York Times

Friends say Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton’s lack of seniority in a chamber that is run by it has left her somewhat disenchanted.

Oil, Daschle, and Hillary

Oil Price Falls Below $50 as Consumption Remains Weak - What a change. Oil prices dropped below $50 a barrel on Thursday for the first time in 22 months, shedding close to $100 in four months as an ailing global economy pares its consumption.

Obama’s Pick of Daschle May Test Conflict-of-Interest Pledge - Tough to be pure. At issue is Mr. Daschle’s work since leaving the Senate four years ago as a board member of the Mayo Clinic and a highly paid adviser to health care clients at the law and lobbying firm Alston & Bird

Clinton Decision Holding Up Other Obama Choices - There is much skepticism on talk shows and other media outlets about appointing Sentor Clinton as Secretary of State. Just under a week after news broke that President-elect Barack Obama met with Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton to discuss naming her the Secretary of State, Mr. Obama’s aides announced that the job of White House counsel was going to Gregory B. Craig, Mr. Obama’s longtime foreign policy adviser. Craig was one of Bill Clinton's lawyers during the Impeachemnt proceedings against the President.

The official word out of the Obama camp was that Mr. Craig was always viewed as a natural for White House counsel, a job that would take advantage of his years as a Washington powerhouse lawyer. But several Obama advisers acknowledged privately that Mr. Craig couldn’t take a foreign policy job if Mrs. Clinton ended up at State — too much animosity and bad history there.

Animosity? How things change. Nine years ago Craig helped Bubba stave off conviction, and there's animosity? Well, here is why.

Susan Rice, one of the earliest foreign policy advisers to sign on with Mr. Obama, also gets a new lease on life if Mrs. Clinton is out of the running for Secretary of State. Like Mr. Craig, Ms. Rice worked for the Clinton administration, handling Africa policy during the 1990s. But the two of them formed a tag team to debunk Mrs. Clinton’s claim to foreign policy experience during the campaign.

Aha.

Experience Reigns, Not 'Change'

It amazes me how shallow much of the political analysis I've been seeing and reading recently. Good case in point is this article from today's Journal: Experience Reigns, Not 'Change'.

It discusses how many former Clinton Administration people are being recruited for the Obama Administration.

President-elect Barack Obama campaigned on the slogan of "change." But his early appointees, including two top choices that emerged Wednesday, show that experience is one of his main criteria.

The idea was change from the Bush Administration and its policies. Thus, appointing people who did not serve with Bush is change.

Each day brings news of more Clinton veterans at the helm, which is perhaps natural, given that many Democrats with the experience necessary for a top job worked in that administration at some point.

Perhaps? Where else are experienced Democrats to be found? Carter was President three decadess ago. [Whew! -- ed.]

Other picks are coming from Capitol Hill, building a bridge to the lawmakers whom Mr. Obama will need to pass his agenda.

Exactly: get people who know what to do, with experience, and whom you can trust; don't reject things out of ideological rigidity, and don't alienate people you will need.

Mr. Daschle's chief of staff from his days as Senate majority leader, Pete Rouse, will also be in the White House as a senior counsel. Phil Schiliro, a longtime aide to Rep. Henry Waxman with deep respect in Congress, will lead outreach efforts to the Hill.

One with deep respect in Congress is an excellent choice, no?

Grumbling over the lack of "change" is coming from the left and the right. Conservative blogger Michelle Malkin has posted mocking pictures of the Clintonites populating the Obama White House and transition team. Writer and filmmaker Lee Stranahan, writing on the liberal Huffington Post, was moved Wednesday to defend Mr. Obama for his peace overtures to the Clintons. "Some of my fellow progressives," he wrote, "may find it ironic that Hillary Clinton – who wrote most of the script for the McCain attacks on Barack Obama – might end up as secretary of State if she decides to."

A right-winger is grumbling over the lack of change? What nonsense. And Huffingtonites are going to have to get used to the reality that President Obama will not adhere to their interpretation of leftist orthodoxy.

Obama Team Anything but Shy and Retiring

Making the transition from campaign to government requires many changes. Being careful and controlling spin remain important, of course. But the task now is to get ready to govern.

Whatever happened to Mr. No-Drama-Obama? After running a campaign known for its almost military-like cool and discipline, the president-elect is now assembling a staff whose members are known for their combativeness.

Governing is tough business, and it makes no sense to start with a weak team.

His press secretary, Robert Gibbs, is no shrinking violet, as one of the few people who can boast of shouting down Sean Hannity of Fox News on Mr. Hannity’s own show.

Now, that's something to boast about.

Some kind of shift was inevitable in the transition from politics to governing, political experts say. But by surrounding himself with forceful personalities, Mr. Obama may also be preparing himself and his administration for real battles.

Indeed there will be some battles. The sniping began the day after the election. The Wall Street Journal has sharpened its knife, er, pen. How about this last paragraph from a review of a book about Margaret Thatcher?

And Mrs. Thatcher's relevance? Socialist habits of mind have not ended, and socialism itself, Ms. Berlinski observes, "is ultimately far wider, more seductive, and more enduring than political Islam." Many societies, she says, "will inevitably arrive at a place much like the one Margaret Thatcher found herself upon her ascent to 10 Downing Street." Or perhaps where America could find itself after a New New Deal.

Or this guy's choice of metaphors?

Barack Obama is bringing in all of the pit bulls and attack dogs and spear hunters into his administration,” said Steve Clemons, a fellow at the New America Foundation who also writes a blog called The Washington Note. “We all thought he was going to be a ‘tending the fields’ type.”

And that is not a right-wing house, at all, it seems. But spear carriers?

Intelligence Policy to Stay Largely Intact

Even the idiots who are calling President-elect Obama a communist will be surprised by his pragmatism.

President-elect Barack Obama is unlikely to radically overhaul controversial Bush administration intelligence policies, advisers say, an approach that is almost certain to create tension within the Democratic Party.

"He's going to take a very centrist approach to these issues," said Roger Cressey, a former counterterrorism official in the Clinton and Bush administrations. "Whenever an administration swings too far on the spectrum left or right, we end up getting ourselves in big trouble."

Emphasis added.

The early transition effort is winning praise from moderate Democrats. "He's surrounded himself with excellent people -- an excellent bipartisan group," said Rep. Jane Harman, a California Democrat who is chairwoman of the House homeland-security subcommittee on intelligence.