I think this is completely the wrong way to think about Obama's appointments. Trying to infer his policy directions from his appointments is completely backward from the way he has presented his way of doing things.
One of Obama's greatest strengths isn't his strong positions. It's the fact that he is willing to open-mindedly listen to a broad range of opinions on these kinds of complicated topics that don't lend themselves to simple solutions. Obama doesn't want a bunch of people around him who all have the same perspective, who all have the same policy agenda. He wants a diverse group of people who can give well-informed, expert advice on which he can base his decisions.
He's the antithesis of Bush, who surrounded himself almost completely with neoconservative yes-men who only thought in the way prescribed by orthodox neoconservativism. Anyone who wandered off that path (*cough*COLINPOWELL*cough*) got shown the door. This would be a decent way to infer Bush's future policy because Bush had already decided his policy based on ideology instead of on-the-ground reality, and tailored his appointments to those decisions. Obama hasn't made up his mind completely yet, so I find it utterly unsurprising to see a diverse range of opinions among his staff and don't think that anything about future policy can be reasonably inferred from any of it.
True; but IF Obama is (as people are saying) delegating his foreign policy to the best people he can find for now, while turning his attention to the economy, then it's a worthwhile to examine the potential dynamic between Jones & Clinton. While it's unlikely we'll ever have a Rumsfeld vs Powell situation, the amount of tension in the Mideast and the quagmire Bush is bequeathing to Obama is staggering & there needs to be examination of who he's picking to manage those factors.
You're absolutely right. I don't have a problem with people analyzing his picks and what their agendas are and how those agendas might possibly conflict in the Obama Administration-to-be. Quite the contrary, in fact; it's information that needs to be in the public eye IMHO. As such, I don't have a problem with the bulk of the article examining Jones's and Clinton's respective records on the issue.
My problem is with the first part, which sets the whole thing in the context of "What will be Barack Obama's policy towards the Middle East?" and how his foreign policy appointments have done nothing to clarify the issue, giving the possible future conflict between Clinton and Jones as an example of how they don't. If they'd cut that part out and left it as being about Jones and Clinton I would have hailed the article as an interesting examination of possible points of future internal conflict. As written, it's a sloppy attempt to draw conclusions about Obama's foreign policy based on faulty assumptions about his M.O. that don't jibe with what he has shown to be his M.O. for pretty much his entire presidential campaign and transition phase.
The Senate confirmation hearings should help a lot too. None of his nominees have gone through that yet. They've only had photo-ops in Chicago. Personally, I'm looking forward to seeing how the Senate treats its own, including Clinton and Daschle.
One of Obama's greatest strengths isn't his strong positions. It's the fact that he is willing to open-mindedly listen to a broad range of opinions on these kinds of complicated topics that don't lend themselves to simple solutions. Obama doesn't want a bunch of people around him who all have the same perspective, who all have the same policy agenda. He wants a diverse group of people who can give well-informed, expert advice on which he can base his decisions.
He's the antithesis of Bush, who surrounded himself almost completely with neoconservative yes-men who only thought in the way prescribed by orthodox neoconservativism. Anyone who wandered off that path (*cough*COLINPOWELL*cough*) got shown the door. This would be a decent way to infer Bush's future policy because Bush had already decided his policy based on ideology instead of on-the-ground reality, and tailored his appointments to those decisions. Obama hasn't made up his mind completely yet, so I find it utterly unsurprising to see a diverse range of opinions among his staff and don't think that anything about future policy can be reasonably inferred from any of it.
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My problem is with the first part, which sets the whole thing in the context of "What will be Barack Obama's policy towards the Middle East?" and how his foreign policy appointments have done nothing to clarify the issue, giving the possible future conflict between Clinton and Jones as an example of how they don't. If they'd cut that part out and left it as being about Jones and Clinton I would have hailed the article as an interesting examination of possible points of future internal conflict. As written, it's a sloppy attempt to draw conclusions about Obama's foreign policy based on faulty assumptions about his M.O. that don't jibe with what he has shown to be his M.O. for pretty much his entire presidential campaign and transition phase.
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