Domestic lineup showing fewer weaknesses than foreign policy picks
With most of his new government team assembled and awaiting confirmation, President-elect Obama is fielding a strong lineup on the domestic front, but may be showing a weaker flank on foreign policy.
The potential imbalance underscores the new administration’s top priorities for solving the nation’s economic woes and tackling domestic issues like health care. For those jobs, Obama tapped experts with deep experience in their fields — notably Timothy Geithner for Treasury secretary and Tom Daschle to head Health and Human Services.
But high-profile nominees such as Hillary Clinton at State and Leon Panetta at the CIA are more problematic for Obama. Both have strong records, but not in the fields they were tapped to manage.
“I am much more encouraged by his domestic team than by what he’s doing internationally,” said Tim Lomperis, a former military intelligence officer who teaches political science at Saint Louis University. “I don’t think it’s a happy prescription.”
Clinton on Tuesday is expected to receive a warm welcome at her confirmation hearings in the Senate, on her way to easy approval as secretary of state.
During the campaign, Clinton criticized Obama’s lack of foreign policy credentials. But her experience in foreign policy has largely been limited to trips made as first lady. And during the campaign she made a memorable gaffe by exaggerating her experience in crisis zones with a widely derided claim to have come under sniper fire in Bosnia.
Her name and profile make Clinton an instant celebrity on the world stage, but with the Middle East an immediate, pressing concern along with still-simmering India and Pakistan, Afghanistan and other hot spots, she can’t afford missteps.
“There are high hopes for her, but who knows?” said Susan MacManus, a political scientist at the University of South Florida.
“I think the biggest question mark is that for a lot of these people, this is their first trip up on stage at this level.”
As part of his prescription for change, Obama promised a reversal on some of the less-popular policies of the Bush administration, including the war in Iraq, the detention facility at Guantanamo Bay, interrogation techniques, rendition and more.
To that end, the choice of Panetta dovetails with a broader Obama theme of diminishing the influence and policymaking at the CIA. But the widely respected Panetta’s lack of spy credentials appeared to many to be a stumble in the otherwise smooth transition.
Announcing the nomination on Friday, Obama defended Panetta’s broad experience in Congress and as chief of staff for President Clinton, saying Panetta “handled intelligence daily at the very highest levels.”
“Let me be clear. In Leon Panetta, the agency will have a director who has my complete trust and substantial clout,” Obama said. “He knows how to focus resources where they are needed.”
Cal Jillson, a political scientist at Southern Methodist University, said Clinton, Panetta and James Jones, a retired Marine general named to be national security adviser, all represent great potential — but also potential vulnerability — on Obama’s new team.
“I take all of them to have significant upside, but none have the depth of experience that guarantees from the starting gun that they are ready to go,” Jillson said.
