Obama’s Whiz-Bang White House Team

Barack Obama’s conquest of the White House has already gone down in history as an example of electoral success by combining tactical ingenuity, intelligent strategy, and the courage of convictions.

It’s impossible not to admire the first step of what’s being called the “transition.” Of course, the selection of a governing team doesn’t in itself guarantee the success of a presidential term, but it is an essential condition.

Barack Obama’s staff has publicized his desire to set up a “Team of Rivals,” the title of a recent best seller about how Abraham Lincoln went about it. In one month, the new American president has nominated to the highest posts in his cabinet almost all his adversaries for the Democratic nomination (Biden, Clinton, Richardson) and the most important Secretary – in truth the only one who’s had any success – of the departing administration (Gates).

Obama has limited experience on the national level, you say? He went searching for the most competent advisers wherever he could find them: on Bill Clinton’s former roster and even from the court of George W. Bush himself. The president-elect must be endowed with confidence and authority to match his modesty, given that he’ll be surrounded by the most competent people possible, and in the U.S. that’s saying a lot, especially in political matters of the highest level.

What about the timid criticisms already popping up about the change promised in the campaign? The paradox is superficial: it’s in Obama’s choosing, without inhibition, to back himself up with the experience that wants to create for himself. (Besides, experience has already invited itself in the form of the economic crisis, supposedly the worst since the Great Depression.)

While the challenges that lie ahead are even bigger than those we’ve seen, the strength and skill of his picks leave one speechless. One begins to long for this political system where it’s possible to choose the best people. Alas, the same system makes it possible to choose the worst…