the problem with the Bush admin, of course, was at the top.

i don't expect this to recur with Obama.

I don't know how I feel about that piece of conventional wisdom. I mean, I don't doubt the competence of almost any of the people named to the positions.

But on the other hand, the phrase "the best and the brightest" would indicate to me a higher standard of judgment.

For instance: Hilary Clinton may well be qualified for the Department of State. But from a State Department standpoint, is she simply the most qualified person who could be sitting there? More qualified than Richardson (who has brokered cease fires in Sudan and already represented us in front of the UN)? Is Janet Napolitano more qualified to run the behemoth that is DHS than, say, Richard Holbrook?

Yes, President-Elect Obama is certainly making sure that his picks are qualified (there are no Arabian Horse-Judges in this administration, and as yet no logging CEOs at the EPA). And some of them (Orszag, Geither, and Summers?) might actually be among the best and the brightest.

It seems like there's another criterion beyond simply competence or experience.

Are you (or rather Krugman) shitting me? The best and the brightest, people who actually know what they're doing? C'mon, these people are the very same ones who engineered and benefited privately from the financial catastrophe they're now supposed to solve on behalf of the world public. Where is the change and hope in picking this team of proven incompetents? As your blog neighbor Dean Baker is fond of pointing out, if they were janitors or dishwashers they'd be fired for such poor on the job performance. Yet under the American political and economic system, they get rewarded and promoted.

What Ezra neglects to mention is that the strength of the Bush cabinet was largely irrelevant, because his cabinet officers did not set major policy; Bush and Cheney had right-wing think tanks, mainly the American Enterprise Institute, to do that. O'Neill was fired because, unlike Powell, he wouldn't accept his designated roll as a powerless pawn.

I may be misremembering but my recollection is that the O'Neill appointment was rather widely derided at the time. His stature shot up, at least among liberals, after he was booted from the job and started tattling.

Ezra's point is just not true: with its retreads from the Ford(!) Administration, the tiredness of its foreign policy approach (it was fairly obvious, recall, that this foreign policy team, top down, wanted to go back into Iraq on day one), the weaknesses on domestic affairs (O'Neill was a mystifying pick all the way around, and said a lot about how important Bush thought Treasury was), the arrival of a slew of Bush's Texas cronies (Harriet Miers, Margaret Spellings, Alberto Gonzales... all in his White House) - no one was suggesting, from the get go, that Bush was appointing the best or the brightest. Even Republicans were kind of befuddled by some of the choices, which went out of their way to ignore seasoned hands from the Reagan and Bush years. This did not just "happen", and while I'm heartened by the way Obama's gone about picking people, I wouldn't lose sight of the fact that a) he's playing it safe in some regard, and b) he's picking more than a few people on personal relationships as much as skills. I'm not likening him to Bush or saying he'll do badly... but the need to be daring and bold, to hear the things that challenge his most deeply held worldviews... may not quite be there. It's just something to keep in mind.

War mongering Hillary in the state department? Yikes! She should be kept in the domestic policy realm!

Everyone does know what "the best and the brightest" actually means in context, right?

When, exactly, did a term of explicit critique become a term of praise? I guess right around the same time we all decided to forget that the supposed center-left of the 60s led us into the Vietnam War. Which, of course, is what led the supposed center-left of the '00s to acquiesce to the Iraq War. I think these are, as such, very important things to remember.

jean, i realize that it makes you sound all appropriately cynical and all, but you do understand that people like summers, geithner, and romer are basically academics and/or civil servants and whatever else you may think of their outlook and judgement, they have not "benefitted privately."

try to keep up.

DivGuy does make an important point: the 1960s best and the brightest thought vietnam was one helluva good idea. being "best" and "bright" does not always guarantee getting things "right."

@howard: Klein didn't name names, and neither did Krugman. You're right that Romer, Geithner, and Summers are academics/civil servants; I had in mind Robert Rubin, who has advised Obama on economic policy and who benefited at Citi from the repeal of the Glass-Steagall Act that he reportedly had a hand in bringing about as Clinton's Treasury Secretary. He is very much a Wall Street Democrat. But then, Obama himself is influenced by Wall Street, which is a very powerful political actor, much stronger than the voting public, so I wouldn't expect him to go against its interests when these clash with those of most ordinary Americans.

Both Geithner and Summers are described as Rubin's proteges, and though I take your point that they, unlike some others one could name, may not have benefited financially from some of the policies they have promoted, they have been wrong in their economic analyses and recommendations. Obama, assuming he sincerely wants to solve America's massive economic problems, would do better to tap economic (and other) advisers who have a better track record rather than those who have supported policies that resulted in the current mess.

At the start, one thing was abundantly clear about Bush's appointments: He gravitated toward Bush family loyalists and people connected to those loyalists, and otherwise Texans connected to W. specifically. Yes, Republicans did try to convince the country that these were all serious people and the adults were going to be back in charge. But it was an extremely narrow and bizarre set of choices, and the spin fooled only fools. W.'s ridiculous selection of Cheney told you everything you needed to know about his decision-making process.

I too am puzzled by the assertion that Obama's announced selections are "the best and brightest". Clinton ran a chaotic campaign organization; how is she going to manage State? What makes Napolitano especially qualified to run DHS? The economic dream team is perhaps a little closer to a nightmare, to judge by their past views. There hasn't been a single nomination yet announced that I thought outstanding, whereas several are troubling...and that's apart from the question of center-rightism.

Or perhaps Ezra uses the expression "best and brightest" ironically in the sense of Robert McNamara and the gang that screwed up so badly in the '60s.

It pays to assess the nominees' true qualities, and not simply rely on the establishment conventional wisdom about their stature and seriousness.

Not in foreign policy. Hillary is the quintessential hack and crony. Read her Wellesley valedictorian address for a piece of peerless drivel. She would have been an adult (22) at the time that was written. If a Bush appointee had written that, it would be all over the internet.

Or we could all circle back to the point where they all sprung, full-formed, from the darker and leatherier recesses of Nixon's heart.

Though one could argue that their deep bench experience *should* help, if you cull the alumni of Watergate and Iran-Contra you will produce a crowd that is good at some things. Those things, mind, don't equal good government.

I'm not sure why people are complaining. Of the three major Democratic candidate, Obama was furthest to the right. I certainly did not support him for his views. I believed that with Obama we would get two more senators than with Clinton. Too me a generic Democrat with 56-57 senators beats one with 54-55 senators. As it stands we have 58 and maybe 59.

Now if we pass some sort of health plan (as I expect) we will be in a situation 3-4 years from now where our country will be on the verge of bankruptcy. Taxes will have to be raised (a lot) and spending will have to be cut. Obama RAN on tax increases and go elected so he doesn't even need balls to hike taxes.

And then spending has to be cut. Cutting entitlements is political suicide, the easy way out is to cut military spending. Politicians always take the easy way.

All Obama need do is absolutely bust the budget Bush style, and then when disater looms, moderately, even conservatively implement the only politically feasible policies available.

Then when the economy does not collapse in the face of high taxes (as it did not in the 1950's) and the USA continues to exist in the face of drastically reduced defense spending (as it did before WW II) then the consensus on taxes and defense will change.

Bush didnt have to be bad. He originally hired good people. Paul 0'neil is a good pick, but he was never a force in the whitehouse as Bush didn't want to listen to what he had to say.

Obama is going to listen to these smart talented people, not sideline them.

Mankiw schools Krugman.

http://gregmankiw.blogspot.com/2008/11/redefining-grownup-and-hack.html

Nah, Manwh*re didn't school Krugman, considering that Manwh*re *is* a bigtime hack. He's still got Bush kneepads on.