I’D RATHER SEE A ‘TEAM OF GENIUSES’
November 19th, 2008, 9:03 am · Post a Comment · posted by Dan Lehr
Newsweek’s Jacob Weisberg nails my thinking on how Obama should fill his cabinet.
Forget rivals, it’s geniuses we need.
He mentions two men whom I think are desperately needed:
For Secretary of State:
Richard Holbrooke.
“…the the Great Mentioner has dropped a number of plausible names, including Hillary Clinton and John Kerry. Both would be good choices, if it didn’t mean passing over the person they both get their best foreign-policy advice from, Richard Holbrooke. Holbrooke dominates the field like no one else on the Democratic side. He has a supple mind, understands all the issues, knows the leaders and has a proven record as a diplomat and peacemaker. At Dayton, Holbrooke singlehandedly ended the war in Bosnia by sheer force of personality.
Holbrooke has some personal defects, too. He is legendary for his ambition and self-promotion. To say he rubs some people the wrong way puts it mildly—he’s a handful. He also backed Clinton in the primaries. But as with Summers, Holbrooke’s flaws hardly rate in the context of the need to rebuild relationships, manage complex security threats and develop a tough-minded liberal vision of America’s role in the world.
For Treasury Secretary:
Larry Summers
“Summers is the outstanding international economist of his generation. I happened to run into him at a dinner in New York a couple of days after Lehman Brothers collapsed. Summers analyzed the situation, which he said had suddenly become far more dangerous, with a clarity I haven’t heard from anyone else since. He explained that it was simultaneously a crisis of liquidity, solvency and confidence—and that the government would ultimately have to inject capital into financial institutions and not just buy up distressed assets. It took Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson another three weeks, a defeat in Congress and a jump-start from British Prime Minister Gordon Brown to find his way to a similar conclusion.
Summers can also be arrogant and politically incorrect. He sometimes does a poor job hiding his contempt for lesser intellects, and he loves to play the provocateur. But these are the defects of a superior mind and a small price to pay for getting the person most likely to maximize our chances of avoiding a global depression.
What do you think?
