If the e-mails I'm getting from Obama supporters are representative, however, it's nevertheless not the approach most of them expected.

Third person...interesting. Do you not consider yourself part of them then?

Completely agreed, Ezra. You can't read an article about the transition-team/new administration anywhere without someone in the comments grousing about the fact that said-person was a member of the Clinton Administration and "that's not change I can believe in, that's more of the same!"

If Obama isn't surrounded by people who can get things done, the agenda goes nowhere. He knows that and hopefully all of his supporters will catch on once things start rolling.

Nice post, EK. I hope that CW becomes that "change" = enacted policies, not new faces.

I'm with you.
During the primary there was a lot of rehashing of the Clinton era. I thought it was really funny when Obama partisans would criticize Clinton by raising some mistake Bill made in the first 2 years (gays in the military, Lani Guinier, health care reform). And those people wanted to elect Obama so he could make the same kinds of mistakes and blow opportunities just like B Clinton did!
Really, Clinton started out with a lot of promise, surrounded by some smart people who had interesting ideas, but they didn't know how to get anything done in Washington. They spent the first two years screwing up; and then the Republicans took over Congress and pushed a really radical agenda, and Clinton had to play defense.
We've got two years to get stuff done. Then we've got the midterms in 2010, in which the Republicans could gain ground. We don't have time for Obama to waste political capital figuring out how to do things.

If the e-mails I'm getting from Obama supporters are representative, however, it's nevertheless not the approach most of them expected.

I'm not sure that I ever had any clear expectations for this stage. All I knew was that we desperately needed a Dem, and Hillary's vision seemed just too limited.

But over the past several months, it's become quite clear that Obama knows what he wants to do. And there's no shortage of policy wonks who can write the details to his specifications.

So I'm delighted to see Obama hiring a whole flock of people who can make his agenda happen.

It's clear, for instance, that Rahm has no illusions about being the signal-caller. He's not a "throw long and deep" sort of guy. But that's the play Obama called, and that's the play he's running.

I think we've got some good times ahead. Obama really does know what he's doing. Hell, there's even a chance that he might be right about Lieberman.

There's an obvious argument that even with the wider turnover of staff in the American executive branch compared to countries with a top-end permanent civil service, you need people who know the system.

I'm sure that Obama has read about the problems that the Clinton team faced in its first two years, and doesn't want to repeat them. He may have asked the Clintons point-blank about how to avoid them.

So, think about two years of pure 'executing' in the executive -- getting shit done -- while allowing relative newcomers to see how it gets done. And then consider a mid-term reshuffle to promote the people who've served their apprenticeship.

Thing is, Obama has never done what I woujld have done. Personally, I would have been all up in McCain's face, I would have reacted angrily to a number of things and he never did. He just kept on winning.

So when I am thinking he is making a mistake with Lieberman (and I really wanted his gavel shoved...) I just try to remember that when Obama is wrong and I am right about a strategic matter I can second guess him. I haven't had that opportunity yet.

I think this is right on. None of these people will be writing policy all on her own -- they all will be working for Obama. As long as he trusts that he can keep them in line (and with someone like Emanuel as whip, that seems likely), why would he not want the people with the most expertise, regardless of their provenance?

Also, Ezra, you should use the Jezebel picture on this page -- it's more flattering.

"If the e-mails I'm getting from Obama supporters are representative, however, it's nevertheless not the approach most of them expected."

that's because they are morons. We can group these mental incompetents into three overlapping categories: 1) former edwards supporters, 2) angry left-wing bloggers, 3) the people quoted in this article.

meanwhile, anyone who had actually been paying attention to Obama and his modus operandi knew that this is exactly what he would do.

Wow. So everyone has to have a great resume, except for the guy at the top? I have never seen such arrogance before as Obama displays. However, once you're in charge you can't just have the good luck of opponents who self-destruct. Hes going to find out soon enough.

Dan,

So humility consists of hiring bozos? That's not change I can believe in!!

Look at it this way -- he's got the confidence to appoint people with more impressive credentials than he has, and trusts that he will be able to manage them.

On the opponents -- have you been watching the same Republican party I have for the last 4 years? They can almost be counted on to self-destruct...

dan: "However, once you're in charge you can't just have the good luck of opponents who self-destruct."

why not? the Republicans are rallying around the guy who's just lost them 50 house seats. The plan is to go further to the right in response to a devastating popular reputation of eight years of right-wing governance; perhaps they'll even run Sarah Palin in 2012. Good luck with that.

Al-qaeda et al are bleeding support thanks to their idiotic attacks on Muslims civilians. Turns out nobody likes terrorists when they're blowing up your own family. plus, OBL may be dead.

Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is in serious danger of losing reelection. the castro regime is one its last legs. oil dictator states worldwide are reeling from the collapse in gas prices. wall street and big business are neutered by the financial collapse. the fundies, nativists, and racist rednecks have dug themselves in so deep a pile of hatred that they are now little more than lepers in the eyes of mainstream America.

yeah, i'd say this is quite a bit of self-destruction, wouldn't you?

Not to say Obama doesn't have some difficult days ahead of him. But the incompetence of his enemies makes things a LOT easier.

fuck anyone who prefers symbolic change over actually enacting progressive policies

for all the anti-Clinton obsession you would think they would remember the self-inflicted wounds that administration suffered trying to fulfill the promise of a 'cabinet that looked like America.' Then again they were all 8 at the time and probably had an illegal nanny of their own.

The change is policy change -- you know, stuff that actually affects people's lives.

It's not about the who. It's about the what.

Nothing says "change" like resurrecting all the old center-right freaks of the Clinton Administration.

What a line of crap we have been fed by Obama. He ran against Hillary saying she was "old politics" then puts all her minions in his administration!

The only thing that is going to change in 08 is the president's skin color, it seems.

I hope I am wrong.

"What's being sought out, then, is . . . indisputable technical competence. If the e-mails I'm getting from Obama supporters are representative, however, it's nevertheless not the approach most of them expected."

I hate to date myself, but how many of those e-mailers are old enough to remember Jimmy Carter and the 12 years of Republican rule that followed his botched presidency?

Um, not many, I imagine.

Well, who can remember Bill Clinton and how he tried to hit the ground running in his first term with gays in the military and Hilary's health care? His administration, of course, made a huge mess of both and Clinton ended up spending the next seven years in the political center.

Lesson: technical competence is the base from which everything else can (and, yeah, must)follow.

In a term of misc. crises this is even more true.

Nice then to hear that its presence in the coming Obama administration is indisputable.

Nothing says "change" like resurrecting all the old center-right freaks of the Clinton Administration.

Have you not been reading the above comments? The Clinton folks are executing Obama's plan, not forming it.

Consider this: Reserve judgment for the first 100 days and see what gets done. Then decide whether we're progressing down a center-right path.

Obama is, so far, showing us that he is a very smart man. A White House full of young, energetic naifs would be a recipe for total disaster.

When Obama talked about "change," it's pretty obvious now what he meant: liberal policies instead of right-wing policies. That is change I can believe in! It's also why his "change" message didn't really resonate for many of us during the primaries, because he never really explained why or how he would "change" things more than Hillary or Edwards. Once he was the Democratic nominee, the "change" mantra became a lot more compelling.

I'm thrilled to see that Obama is putting a premium on competence and experience. Change, if it comes, will come from Obama; he sets the agenda, he makes the executive decisions, everybody else works to implement his agenda. It's not really important that his people have "new ideas" or a "fresh perspective" or any of that BS. They just need to know how to get shit done. Now go do it!

Coming from the Dirty Little Fuck we must assume that throwing long and deep means some bombs on the heads of some of those rotten A-rab Palestinians.

I, for one, am not surprised. When Hillary supporters argued last spring that Obama lacked experience, I often responded: "You can hire experience. You can't hire vision and leadership."

And that is exactly what we're witnessing. Good.

The "change" promised by Obama is nothing more than cosmetics. Listen to experts like Webster Tarpley, Jerome Corsi, Larry Pratt and others discuss the real Obama. They are free MP3 downloads at
http://drop.io/Summerbird

You know, "the audacity of competence" may have been meant sarcastically, but it's the literal truth. Carter wasn't very successful for whatever reason, and Clinton couldn't or didn't want to draw on the executive experience of other Democrats very much. And as for Republicans, the current administration's competence is a joke except maybe at kleptocracy. Even before that, though, Republicans are the party that says government doesn't work. There's plenty to worry about from the coming administration, but probably the biggest reason for optimism is that it'll be the first in decades that's both willing and able to demonstrate skilled leadership.

My concern is what kind of experience is Obama bringing into his inner circle. For going on close to 30 years now the leadership style of the Daschles, Gephardts and the DLC has been impotence in the face off determined opposition. I fear that this team will revert to their old pattern of crafting a "center" position to appeal to the "sensible" right wing and then jettisoning any remaining policy points that may actually be effective in the "spirit of compromise" leaving what is basically a right wing dictated policy. I hope I am wrong, but I am afraid that we may see "compromises" like forcing everyone to buy insurance but still allowing insurance companies to reject claims on frivolous grounds.

After the kind of campaign Obama just ran, I'm inclined to grant him the benefit of the doubt. A LOT of benefit of the doubt. The guy knows how to get things done and not be distracted by small stuff.

He can't please everyone, of course--but anyone who thought he was a peacenik redistributionist was either a) naive, or b) buying into Repub. talking points.

This is unfolding pretty much just how I expected, and I couldn't be happier. Like Ezra, I'd praise competence over freshness. Sure, some Clinton Administration officials were, well, Clintonites. But most were just Democrats who worked for Clinton because he was the freakin' President, and you don't pass up a chance to work for a President just because his ideology only matches yours 80% of the time.

meanwhile, anyone who had actually been paying attention to Obama and his modus operandi knew that this is exactly what he would do.

Absolutely. Why are so many people so clueless about this? Or, put another way, how do most media outlets manage to selectively quote these people? This is just about the only place I've seen (or heard) where a majority of people seem to understand what Obama is doing.

I understand if someone has some concerns about whether he'll actually be able to manage all these people, but if he can, he's going to go very far indeed.

After watching Gephardt and Edwards' 2004 runs, did anyone expect that their former staffers could execute something like Obama's campaign? Seemed unlikely. But the idea was that they had incredible technical competence that just needed to be matched by moment, candidate, and money. And that turned out to be correct.

The transition argument seems to be something similar: The longtime Democratic operatives and wonks are really quite good.

Alternative argument: The longtime Democratic operatives and wonks are fucking prostitutes, who'll work with a man of integrity (Obama, it seems) as happily as they'll work for anyone else (e.g. that brilliant grotesque Bill Clinton). The worst thing about the likely adoption of policies I favour by the United States is that the credit for those policies, for the positive change they'll likely/hopefully bring, will go to a party that at nearly every opportunity in my adult lifetime has helped the Other Plutocrats fuck the American people in whatever uncomfortable position has been featured in the magazines that month.

Here's to Obama and smart picks - but let's not go over the moon praising the people we were happy to vilify when they were ineffectually waving their hands at the Imperial President this last nearly-a-goddamn-decade, OK?

Then again, jerking off the apparatchiks is never bad business for a young Washingtonian...you daring young man, you.

Why are so many people so clueless about this?

Because, despite many, many warnings, they insisted on believing that Obama was something he is not. They believed he, like them, was a Clinton hater; he's not. (Memo to anti-Hillary fanatics: to the extent that Obama ran "against" the Clinton legacy, he did so only because he had to--because Hillary Clinton was his opponent.) They believed he was a peacenik; he's not. They believed he was an unrepentant idealist; he's actually an optimistic pragmatist. They believed he was all warmness and fuzziness; in fact, he can be pretty ruthless when he wants to be.

I for one am for the most part happy to see that the real Obama does not much resemble the version of him that his more annoying boosters created in their minds. They wanted self-actualization in the form of a politician; most of us wanted what it looks like we got: a competent, whip-smart, liberal Democrat who will do what it takes to enact the policies that the majority of the country wants to see enacted. That's a great thing! Damn near a miracle, in fact! And the fact that the public supported him, despite his race and his name and all that, says something pretty awesome about us.

But no, people are whining because he's appointing too many people from the Clinton administration.

Obama's growing on me. I'm frankly glad to be rid of the tyranny of the masses at his rallies, each person with their own idea of what "change" will mean with their hero Barack in power. Not to sound negative, but I think Barack played the crowds to a pretty large extent, and now he's surprising them by not being a magical unicorn. BUT he's also surprising people like me just a little bit with all of this gol-durned competency in hiring, and giving my cynicism a beating by actually assembling a team that might be able to pull some good shit off. Hire at least a couple of non-hawks to the cabinet now and I'm sold: He's going to be a better president than what I was expecting (and I campaigned and voted for him). Crazy, huh?

Not to sound negative, but I think Barack played the crowds to a pretty large extent, and now he's surprising them by not being a magical unicorn.

I have to wonder how many people are actually surprised by it in the first place. Sure, plenty of blog commenters are, but we're inherently unrepresentative* of the general public or general Democrats. Of Obama voters, how many of them lived up to the stereotype and believed in the whole magical unity pony thing, and how many just thought he was a somewhat-better-than-average Democrat and were enthusiastic for other reasons? I mean, look at Balloon Juice for an example of the latter attitude.

* We have the free time to comment on it during work hours, and more generally the people who are passionate about something are more likely to talk about it and I doubt anyone is really all that passionate in favor of most of these potential candidates.