Foreign policy wasn't necessarily a plus for Obama in the general election. All the antiwar fever had died down because of the surge. I think that was the one area where voters rated McCain higher, so its no surprise that he would go easy there. And its not like Gates and Clinton are the next Cheney and Rumsfeld.

Its not like Obama was much of a peacenik anyway. He promoted wars in Afghanistan and possibly Pakistan.

Meh, imagine it was 2000 and you were trying to suss out GWB's foreign policy and placing great significance on the nomination of Colin Powell. SecState's power has been waning for decades in favor of direct white house diplomacy.

I can see her as something of a disaster if she fills up the department with her supporters but I don't think she's going to be setting a foreign policy agenda.

This is true for Tom Daschle, the new health czar, and true for Peter Orszag, the new director of the OMB, and it's even true for Larry Summers, who'll be a senior adviser in the White House.

The is the emerging CW, but I think the jury's still out on this one. Daschle has been a critical Washington insider for Obama since the beginning so he was due his pick of Cabinet posts, Orzsag is a rising star and has been very focused on the delivery of health care (I can't recall anything on access actually) and Summers-- well, if he's the case for a more progressive health care package, that ain't that compelling of a case. The truth is probably somewhere in between, but I think the tea leaves that have been read in the last week are a stretch so far.

"All of which goes to underscore how bad campaign-season information is."

No. It goes to underscore that Ezra is more than a bit of a fraud.

He lied his way through campaign season, and now chooses to whine about the difficulty of parsing campaign season info to get back to a more reality based world rather than admitting that he purposely lied all year long.

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And FWIW, pretty much everything Ezra writes in the two initial paragraphs of this post are false.

Once you start lying, it must be hard to figure out when to stop.

"(This) is the emerging CW, but I think the jury's still out on this one."

Well, it's Ezra's lie of the day, but I don't think it's the CW outside of Ezra's head.

"I think the tea leaves that have been read in the last week are a stretch so far."

Ezra isn't even trying to read tea leaves. He's intentionally ascribing false meaning to events to make his previous lies look less bad.

Tom Daschle is a good sign for healthcare reform? OK...

On domestic issues, and health care in particular, Obama's appointments have been individuals understood as passionate and unyielding advocates of comprehensive, and universal, health reform.

There are lots and lots of people in Washington who are passionate about fundamental health reform. The Senate, where Obama has his closest relationships, is filled with them. Orszag was something of a no-brainer for OMB, health care or no (that says nothing about his skills for the job, which are suspect). And Larry Summers is clearly Obama's favorite economics advisor other than Goolsbee, and I'd say falls a few degrees shy of passionate on health care.

More than that, it's still true that health reform is a Congressional effort. The only appointment that jumps out at you so far for attention to legislative matters is Rahm -- that guy commands attention on the hill. Daschle is considered a softie and doesn't scare anyone in town.

Petey, what do you have against Orszag? Jon Cohn says he's awesome.

I don't think the appointments have been particularly surprising, outside of Clinton for State. Obama's foreign policy pronouncements were generally carefully-worded to allow for more limited or aggressive action dependent upon the situation. Neither Gates or Clinton, seen in this context, is really outside the realm of possibilities.

The campaign was reading the restaurant reviews. We are now in the restaurant chosen, reading the menu of the week. Seasonality definitely has changed the mix of entries: more root veggies than mid-summer delights, and less expensive meat cuts than in previous periods.

Judging the meal seems a bit premature (we've ordered, but not been served), even if the aroma of cooking food is a little different than the reviews/menu might indicate.

So, bring on the food, hoping it isn't bland, somewhat cold, and a yucky combination of flavors.

And we haven't gotten the bill yet either.

P.S. The waiters and cook staff are a mixed bag, but mostly up to the task. One waiter farted at the table.

Petey, what do you have against Orszag? Jon Cohn says he's awesome.

I know that Petey's mind is a fascinating and bizarre place, and that even small insights into the strange things going on there can be the source of hours of enjoyment, but, really, isn't it better for everyone if we don't feed the troll?

I tend to think the seeming shift we're witnessing on both domestic and foreign policy fronts are probably a result of the "changing conditions on the ground" - ie, during the primaries (esp early on) we were facing a run-of-the-mill recession and a contentious environment over an ugly situation in Iraq. Now we are in the most extreme economic crisis of most of our lifetimes and Iraq has faded from the limelight, with general consensus on withdrawal.

My take is Obama can't afford to be bold and progressive on foreign policy over the next two years because so much of his energy and focus will be on the domestic agenda. You can't push on all fronts without pushing sloppily, and pushing sloppily on foreign affairs can be dangerous.

I would really like to see a departure from the traditional "mindset that got us into Iraq", but I can also appreciate that this might not be the best time to do it. The rationale that I've seen floated for Hillary as Sec of State that most made sense to me was that Obama needs a surrogate who can command international respect and stature immediately because he will have less time for diplomacy than would have been hoped. Gates definitely makes sense from this reading of what's going on.

Also, I think the Colin Powell analogy is important to keep in mind - the seeming differences between Powell and GW are much vaster than between BHO and HRC and that didn't really signal much about Bush at all. As everyone says, we'll just have to see how things actually shake out. But on the foreign policy side, I think we'll have to wait even longer...

I would add that it looks like the opposite on the domestic front - even potentially "centrist" voices are calling for meeting the crisis with boldness. Obama's specific domestic messages haven't really changed since the campaign - they just seem a bit louder and more authentic because they haven't moderated since being taken out of the "make promises you don't intend to keep" expectations of a campaign.

I don't know, I think Clinton's a reasonable choice. She's well respected and popular abroad, and Bill got closer to resolving the Palestinian conflict than anyone else.

This was her great strength as a presidential candidate, and it might help her undo a little more of Bush's damage than what some other smart, qualified individual could.

"At the end of the day..."

Please stop using that phrase if at all possible. I entirely agree with these Oxford guys on this one:

http://blog.wired.com/underwire/2008/11/oxford-research.html

Incidentally, you're calling Summers "boldly progressive" now? Damn, that was even faster than I thought, how quickly our "progressive" movement was corrupted.

We seem to chronically forget that presidents choose cabinet officers for appearances' sake, or as payback for favors, or as gestures to interest groups, or in an attempt to control bureaucracies, or to give the cabinet a patina of bipartisanship and/or diversity. (The exeption this time around, given the economic crisis, is that key economic appointments are meant to give reassurance that a high-powered brain trust is on the case.)

Once the cabinet is in place, the president pursues whatever policies he has in mind, working with or around cabinet officers, depending largely on White House staff and congressional allies to get things done.

There's no reason to think Obama will behave differently in making cabinet appointments -- and ample evidence that he is self-assured enough not to be sidetracked or frustrated by the Secretary of X or Department of Y.

The most striking things about the appointments we've heard of so far are the relative sparsity of old cronies and the weighting toward legislative technicians. Rahm Emanuel, Phil Schiliro, Daschle, Clinton, Richardson and, undoubtedly, undersecretaries and congressional liason officers yet to be named, are a signal that Obama will pursue an ambitious legislative agenda.

Trying to make inferences about Obama's "real" policy positions from his staff and cabinet appointments seems to overlook the complexities of what goes into a good appointment. It remains completely possible that Obama is choosing people whom he believes will be most effective at executing and implementing policy. Maybe he places a higher premium on competence than where a particular person's past statements fall on the progressive spectrum. Can't Obama be able to see the necessity of a major shift in foreign policy but also recognize the utility of having Gates hold down the fort for a while? Isn't this blog supposed to resist the reductive tendencies of the MSM?

Per my previous comment, the appointment to look for is whoever will be tasked with transplanting a spine into Harry Reid. (Maybe that will be one of Emanuel's extra chores.)

As Mo said:

"I tend to think the seeming shift we're witnessing on both domestic and foreign policy fronts are probably a result of the "changing conditions on the ground""

I totally agree with this. One of the overlooked things is the extraordinary shift in conventional wisdom that the economic crisis has brought to Washington. The broad center is now on board with the Obama program. He didn't have to appoint outsiders to create change. He could appoint experienced centrists whose entire paradigm has been shifted due to the crisis.

At least thats what I hope and believe. But a couple months ago, you had Krugman proposing a $600 billion stimulus, and now you have Schumer echoing that and Obama's economic advisors hinting that that will be correct. So it seems that progressives have won the battle without really even having to fire a shot.

To build on what nathan just said:

While it's not good professionally for progressives, who may still be kept at bay, I have to think a progressive agenda brought to us by "respected centrists" could be the best thing for actual advancement of our agenda, for a few reasons:

1) the likelihood of legislation passing is much higher when has the stamp of these respected establishment figures. (Because while all these are "establishment", they're the good kind generally - competent and effective not cronies.)
2) It redefines the "center" to a pretty progressive point.
And 3) It's essential that we have people who are experienced and know how to do this well immediately. We've seen the catastrophic effects of incompetence over the last eight years, but I think building a competent, effective government is triply important from a progressive view. Having effective government, I think, will move our country more toward a progressive worldview than having a more stridently progressive ideology in government.

On foreign policy, the jury is still out. Susan Rice, after all, is chairing Obama's FP transition, and she'll probably wind up in an influential spot -- either as Deputy NSA, as UN Ambassador or in some position at the NSC if not at State.

Moreover, I have yet to see how these appointments -- with the possible exception of Clinton -- are at odds with Obama's foreign policy statements.

He has continually advocated dialogue with Iran, withdrawing troops from Iraq, aggressive diplomacy between Israel and the Palestinians, and a refocus on Afghanistan and Pakistan.

His FP/Natl' Security choices thus far seem to put establishment, centrist and even conservative faces on these policies. From this perspective, Obama is aided by the fact that most of the new "progressive" visions of foreign policy have converged with the goals of traditional, Scowcroft realism.

I do wonder where the rest of Obama's "gang of 300" and people like Samantha Power will end up. Hopefully they won't be fully shut out, and they may wind up at the National Security Council if not the State Dept.

But at least at the outset, it certainly seems as if Obama is using centrist choices as cover for pursuing goals that could be described as "progressive".

....Susan Rice, after all, is chairing Obama's FP transition....

I still don't understand why some bright people thought Clinton was much more conservative or Obama much more liberal on foreign policy.

There was one difference - the AUMF vote - Clinton made a very poor decision and Obama made a speech. Their votes in the Senate were nearly identical.

I understand someone voting against Clinton because of the vote but to make the jump that Obama was much more liberal based on a hypothetical he couldn't answer didn't make sense to me.

All the antiwar fever had died down because of the surge.

Wow. Eleven words, with at least twelve falsehoods, false assumptions, misapprehensions, misunderstandings, bought-into-false-frames...oh hell, I give up. The "surge" "worked". The "surge" caused the "anti-war fever" to "cool down". It certainly is handy to have ready-made opinions available, isn't it? God bless the New York Times.

It was function of their political naiveté and most useful to mask their overwhelming Clinton hatred. You got what you voted for and what you voted for was a centrist DLC Dem. Enjoy.

The way to show displeasure with the DLC was to vote for Hillary? Do I got this straight? I don't remember Al From stumping for Obama.

I don't even think any of this is relevant anymore. We are nationalizing banks and who knows what. Very few people alive have watched capitalism fuck the dog this bad. If Obama came out after election day and started talking about the contradictions of capitalism and it's tendencies toward monopoly in the financial sector ala Marx I'm not sure anyone would argue with him.

You want fanboyism explain yourself and your Clinton fetish. What the hell did he accomplish?

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Clinton is a mixed bag: peace, prosperity and diddling interns led the public to believe the could give C+ the job. At the same time, he also laid the groundwork for Obama.

Clinton (or Gore) would NEVER have used 911 to start a war in Iraq. Clinton ALMOST got a peace deal between Israel and Palestine and had and institution-building progressive foreign policy. Clinton brokered a peace settlement in the Balkans and N Ireland. Clinton had worked NK into a negotiated position. Plus, Clinton brought a lot of young Democrats into government. They have 8 years of experience. Obama needs that experience to mentor younger Democrats that come into office at the lower levels.

Clinton was always an internationalist, and there is no reason to believe that Obama will be much different. Are there other logical choices? Probably not.

Obama's team seemed to have inspired confidence in market. If you watched the press conference, though, as soon as he started spouting his green stuff about "wind farms" and other such, market tanked 150 points. Larry Summers looked like wind had been broken on stage. Still, the economic team is grownups, not Chicago hacks like Jarrett and Axelrod.

Like you, my vote in the primary, and to a lesser extent my vote in the general election, was based on the idea that Obama would take us in a less hawkish direction. The Clinton appointment is a very big disappointment on that front. I was rooting for Powers...

HRS is not a hawk.

Mike and bakho win the thread.