Barack Obama is looking more like a realist
The president-elect who promised to overthrow Washington's partisanship and cronyism is turning to seasoned veterans -- even lobbyists -- in an apparent effort to avoid rookie mistakes.
Now that the confetti has fallen, the nascent administration of Barack Obama has come face to face with one of its biggest challenges: living up to the exceptionally high expectations his thrilling campaign produced among supporters and long-suffering Democrats.
At his transition team's first public briefing Tuesday, the audience was wildly outsized for the presentation by the transition chief, owlish think-tank denizen John Podesta.
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The story is very superficial. In explaining who Podesta and Emmanuel are it gives almost no background at all. The importance of the fact that Sam Nunn is working on the selection of Defense Department candidates is not explained at all: How is his doing the job likely to bring about a particular kind of Secretary of Defense. That there needs to be planning to be able to get new programs through congress is too obvious to mention. How the planning will be done,