The Dream

This morning David Brooks has a pleasant fantasy about an Obama Administration that’s truly nonpartisan, centrist, and fiscally prudent:

Having built bipartisan relationships, having shown some fiscal toughness, having seen the economy through the tough times, my dream administration will then be in a position to take up health care reform, tax reform, education reform and a long-range infrastructure initiative. These reforms may have to start slow and on the cheap. But real reform would be imaginable since politics as we know it would be transformed.

Is it all just a dream? I hope not. In any case, please be quiet and let me have my moment.

I think I can be confident that here at The Glittering Eye is close enough to silence that my commenting on his fantasy won’t disturb his sweet slumber.

One of the great things about not having left much of a paper trail over the years is that nobody can really say with confidence what you’re about and everybody can dream that the incoming administration will have the same priorities as they do themselves.

It’s extraordinarily early in this process but the very few signals that have been sent suggest that the Obama Administration’s first priority is party unity. That’s how I interpret the appointment of Rahm Emmanuel as chief of staff. He’s a majority whip-type personality whose closest ties are to the Clintons (keep your friends close…) but who should command at least a little respect from the congressional progressive caucus for his fund-raising abilities and as the architect of the campaign that gave Democrats the majority in the House of Representatives in 2006.

Will the new administration extend a hand to Republicans and invite them into significant posts? I can’t imagine what those posts might be. Much as I might like him to do it President Obama would be foolish to leave Robert Gates as Secretary of Defense, thereby ceding the argument that Democrats are soft on defense. It would immediately invite the question “What? Couldn’t he find a Democrat to do the job?”

Similarly, I can’t imagine a President Obama, many of whose sharpest criticisms of the outgoing administration have been about foreign policy, leaving remnants of that administration in positions of responsibility in State or national security.

Additionally, if President Obama is true to the model of the last two administrations, his first acts as president will be to throw a sop to the base. For President Clinton it was gays in the military followed by his ill-fated attempt at healthcare reform. For President Bush it was tax cuts and his energy plan.

What will President Obama’s sop be? It may well be healthcare reform although that’s quite a nettle to grasp at the first try. I’m guessing it will be something a little easier.

2 comments… add one
  • PD Shaw Link

    Since RFK Jr. is being discussed as head of the EPA, I think progressives will find plenty of cabinet positions to their liking.

    BTW/ Did Clinton choose gay rights as his first issue? I thought that issue had been pushed by Congress and Clinton sort of ceded the agenda.

  • Andy Link

    Gates has stated a few times he doesn’t want the job. He hasn’t ruled out staying on for a period of transition however, and I think that would be wise for Obama to do. Six months to a year and then a new (probably Dem) SECDEF.

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