Team dreams

Barack Obama tries to have it all, and has a habit of succeeding. And that extends to his fledgling administration too 8212; for his transition team, staff and Cabinet, he is picking a team that combines competence and experience. For a man whose presidential pitch was swaddled in sweet nothings, he has allayed apprehensions that he would pick a callow, politically vacuous bunch in the name of change. But 8220;no drama Obama8221; has demonstrated, again, that he is a consensus-oriented pragmatist above all, combining executive experience with fresh energy, despite the carping of his netroots on the far left 8212; at a time when economic armageddon is supposedly upon us, he managed to put together an aggressive, centrist dream team.

Presented with a choice between Lawrence Summers and Timothy Geithner the next Lawrence Summers he chose both, constructing an arrangement that ensured they8217;d work together. He has not let petty power-plays or personal animus get in the way either 8212; letting Joe Lieberman keep his Senate job, and even asking Hillary Clinton to be his secretary of state. Whether or not his picks work out perfectly to general satisfaction, he must be given credit for simply cobbling together such an unlikely group. Obama has acknowledged his political debt to Lincoln, who famously assembled a 8220;team of rivals8221; to his cabinet, believing that disagreement could strike sparks and energise administration. Obama has concentrated on what matters at this crucial juncture, and found a team that can hit the ground running.

And given that the world is still marvelling at Obama8217;s preternatural political ability, it might be useful to examine how cross-partisanship and openness to experiment pays off. In India, especially, when our political coalitions are merely aggregations of ambition, and face-off in mutually antagonistic postures, we could do with some audacious decision-making like that.