TW: That would be Bush the father not the idiot son just to be clear...Klein outlines how the Obama national security team is lining up. Yes HRC is a centrist too but if I hear anymore of this tedious "Team of Rivals" meme I am going to puke. The key is the other players and the re-emergence after a couple of decades of a bi-partisan approach to national security. Foreign policy post WWII (and largely pre- as well was a bi-partisan effort, this consensus broke down largely with Reagan and completely fell apart with W. Bush.
The more Obama re-establishes the consensus, the better off our policy will be. Furthermore as a partisan Dem and a nationalist American, to the extent Obama can blunt Republican criticisim of his national security policies the greater room he will have for BOLD domestic policies.
From Klein at Time:
"Hillary Clinton "on track" to become Secretary of State, retired General Jim Jones said to become National Security Adviser (while Republican realist Brent Scowcroft has been advising Obama on National Security)...and some strong flutterings that Obama wants to retain Robert Gates as Secretary of Defense...
If true, this is an extremely strong, and wise, national security team. It would reflect a powerful desire on Obama's part to return to the tradition of bipartisan foreign policy, with politics stopping at the water's edge. And it would reflect a growing centrist consensus in the foreign policy/national security spectrum that includes most members of the Bush 41 and Clinton teams--in favor of the primacy of diplomacy over militarism, ready to begin talks with those the Bush Administration considered pariahs (the Taliban, Syria, Iran), but not averse to the use of force--against Al Qaeda, in particular--when necessary...
In any case, this group sends an indelible signal that the President-elect is a confident fellow and absolutely intent on creating a new national unity (and sanity) in Foreign Policy and Security matters. That is very good news."
http://swampland.blogs.time.com/2008/11/21/national-security-team-of-rivals/
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