In the wreckage of this week’s news, it’s encouraging to watch the Obama Administration taking shape with an emphasis on extreme competence (no heck-of-a-job Brownie in the lot).
Today’s New York Times describes it as “tilting toward the center, inviting a clash of ideas,” but the left-right analysis seems less to the point than the question of getting things done as transition team members “believe that the new administration will have no time for a learning curve.”
Starting with the choice of Rahm Emanuel, a can-do guy if there ever was one, the new President clearly intends to surround himself with brains and real-world experience rather than like-mindedness and loyalty.
That was reflected in the leak yesterday about the new Treasury Secretary, Timothy Geithner, a pragmatist with deep experience, whose choice sent the stock market into euphoria.