I'm getting a big kick out of this.  One of the reasons I supported Hillary over Obama is precisely because she was more centrist on foreign affairs than Obama. And now that Obama has won, I'm more pleased with the direction he's taking than a lot of other people who supported him from the very beginning.

I'm enjoying it immensely.

Has Obama announced different policies or are you doing the Sirota thing ?

So your point is that Obama would not have won had not the inevitable consequences of terrible Bush administration policies come to light?

Really? John McCain had a lot going for him on other issues?

Your analysis, as always, is proven in retrospect to be incorrect, but now that you are basing it on a counterfactual I guess you can have it whatever way you want.

As far as foreign policy goes, shouldn't you wait until he becomes President? I find the impatience and lack of equilibrium among bloggers especially to be both funny and aggravating. You have to remember that Obama is not Bush. Soliciting a wide spectrum of opinion regarding foreign affairs is not the same as agreeing and implementing whatever you hear last(a trait of Bush leadership).

I doubt that Obama is going to start knocking off guys like Chavez or Morales so that ExxonMobil or some American mineral concern can make a few extra bucks. It is hard to place US foreign policy on a spectrum but cautious and conservative is probably more likely to describe Obama than reckless and reformist.

And as for Iraq? We are leaving. The neo-cons' party is over. They failed.

Obama is not going to pursue a revolutionary foreign policy, but I believe it will be focused and concerted on key issues he wants accomplished, foremost among these, redeployment out of Iraq and the destruction of al Qaeda in Afghanistan and Pakistan.

You are free to disagree or continue to play a concern troll on your own site, but wait until he actually is in the oval office to label what his actual foreign policy stances are.

Obama has stated that he would move more forcefully into Afghanistan, using some of the troops he'll withdraw from Iraq. He will also forcefully go after known Al-Quaida hideouts.  All that was known beforehand.  Nobody should be surprised.

However, full Iraq withdrawal will happen sooner than expected, given the agreement the Bush administration just signed with the Iraqi government.  That is a positive development which will go a long way to decimate troop levels in the region, keep a central Obama promise, and allow him to beef up our presence in Afghanistan, which is sorely needed.

The selections make it clear that Obama is looking  to return to the policies that had served us well for decades before cowboy Bush came in and destroyed it in one fell swoop.  Balances in the region are delicate, and we have to shed the aggressor role, but can't be entirely passive in the region, either. Diplomacy is going to be at a premium again, Hillary will be super busy, Obama will probably going to do a good deal himself - the famous 'sit down with heads of states without preconditions' - and there will be a good deal of palm greasing.  Better to spend $5 Billion to create a somewhat content ally than $100 Billion fighting them.

I would not shroud these selections in progressive and centrist terms.  What exactly is a progressive foreign policy?  Absolute pacifism?  Leave the region alone to sort things out themselves, a Pat Buchanan-like insularism?

I don't quite buy it.  Firstly, I understand what makes a progressive on domestic policy but at this point in our national history, what is a foreign policy 'progressive?'  It ain't a 'dove,' that's for sure.

Obama consistently promoted foreign policy 'realism' as opposed to 'neo-conservatism' throughout the campaign, as well as 'soft power' advocacy and more nuanced diplomacy with allies, opponents and the undeclared.  We haven't seen enough yet to make a determination if you ask me and my expectations of a dramatically changed approach are still keenly alive.  Is see no reason to believe that he isn't planning to deliver as advertised.  And as for dropping the 'preconditions' on negotiations with Iran, shifting the emphasis to Afghanistan, taking the war to al-Qaeda and, most significantly, a move toward a fixed timetable for withdrawal from Iraq we have already arguably seen his campaign rhetoric becoming conventional wisdom.  Sure the details on timing and technique vary but I would argue that Obama's impact on foreign policy has already been substantial and he hasn't even been sworn in yet.  I'm watching this all pretty closely and I haven't been disappointed, though I must admit the Hillary appointment sent me into a tailspin for awhile though I now can see where it could make a lot of sense.  I always assumed people like Scowcroft and Brzezinski were part of what Obama intended to offer as well as Power, Rice, Lake and others.

Oh, Eeyore!

I'm continually impressed by your willingness to admit how badly you got it wrong this year.  But you're being excessive about it.

Obamabots certainly were/are delusional. To those of us didn't swill the Obama kool aid it was always clear as a bell that Obama was no progressive and no liberal and that the Obama boosters were projecting their fantasies onto Obama (which he was more than happy to have them do). They will be severely disappointed.

Jerome, your clear analysis was always refreshing. Too bad the delusional Obama boosters were too in the tank to see the reality before their eyes.

for the little stuff.  Obama acted and sounded different.  I supported him after reading his books.  He built up a grassroots organization that had never been seen before in American politics.  He instills faith in people who support him and although I believe he'll make mistakes I also believe he will take an approach to governance different from the one Clinton would take.

I find the bickering about the personalities who have been chosen to be in the cabinet to be silly and somewhat niave.  Having worked on the inside in a previous life, I know that the boss (Obama in this case) drives the decisions in most cases not the other way around.  Case in point - the first Congressman I worked for was a moderate to conservative Democrat from rural Virginia with whom I did not always agree.  He was a good politician who had won a district that had been Repub for decades.  We had some good policy discussions on issues and he enjoyed my input but in the end he voted as he felt best.  He respected my input but in the end it was his decision.

One other thing - I interviewed for over half a dozen political jobs in my 8 years in DC and I was never once asked my position on issues.  They wanted to know my skills and how I could move their agenda.  I suspect that is what is driving Obama's hiring choices above all else.  He wants to move his agenda and he believes these experience hands will help do it.

Jerome just does not get it. He is just trying to rationalise his prior errors of Judgemnt. Hillary did not win. She just does not have the same capabilities - plus she tends to tell fibs - the last thing we need in a President after Bush.

So Obama won and now we are facing problems that make 1932 look like childs play and Jerome carries on like he is still living in April 2008.

Beleive me there are going to be massive changes and Jerome is bitching about what? - I mean what does Jerome want Obama to do in the first 100 days that is so important. Does he want to debate gays in the military?- or other such trivial bullshit?

For gods sake get over it and focus on simply saving the Country from a total meltdown.

Never has there been so much opportunity for change. It's coming.

Thank goodness the best person for the job is at the helm. His handling of the transition has been amazing and he is inspiring confidence. That is in itself vital for future success. inspiring confidence it essential - not Jeromes drival that is driving this site into a cave for the ten remaining delusional PUMA's.

btw Most of these "clintonites" are the people who supported obama over Hillary during the primaries (Richardson-commerce, Summers-adviser, Eric holder-AG, Rham- didn't endorse anyone but a close obama friend in Chicago), in effect betraying the Clintons. In fact I don't know any so called clintonite that supported Hillary in the primaries and now have a good post (except Hillary, but she redeemed herself by doing 70 events for obama after she lost, plus obama has a Lincoln team of rivals that might work out). There might be some but no names jump up to me so far, most of these names are people who abandoned Hillary in the primaries.

on foreign affairs for two reasons - his willingness to say up front that we should be discussing with our enemies, and his cool demeanor. he never threatened to obliterate another nation just to try and convince voters he had foreign policy "gravitas."

She is dead on right.  I am quite happy with what I have seen from Obama so far.  He has a solidly progressive agenda he plans to push as we saw today with the public works announcement and he is assembling a strong team to help him move his agenda.

Good to see you writing more lately.

Otherwise, I have nothing interesting to say right now, I just want the legendary blogfather to respond to MY comment too.

Timothy Geithner has worked for 3 administrations. Reagan, bush and Clinton I believe, so calling him a Clinton vet only is misleading.. Funny how everyone is pigeonholed to the Clintons just so that some people can drive their CWs.

My comment was directed to the Lieberman situation, and had absolutely nothing to do with Obama's foreign policy appointments.

What a crock of shit, the Telegraph is.

Jerome is a foreign policy expert and also a clairvoyant. This last and little known fact about Jerome is important because it means he can tell what kind of foreign policy Obama is going to have even before takes power much less appoints his team. It truly is amazing stuff and based on his exemplary predictive track record in the primaries- which he himself has highlighted as of late- its pretty clear that here too Jerome will be correct... as determined by himself.

Obama is not an ideologue, he's a pragmatist.  I've been saying that all along.  His policies will be workable and be based on the best interests of the country.

He is choosing a cabinet of experts in their respective fields.  Just as his campaign advisors were experts.  

In my mind what defines a progressive is someone who is not an ideologue but who will get the job done.  To me Obama is good example of a  progressive.

I'm tired of the criticisms of black politicians and nothign about white ones. The man isn't even President yet and the bashing begins.

It wouldn't surprise me if Sirota and Jerome tried to turn Obama into David Dinkins.

Ugh, enough.

I guess Jerome will have to make due with a couple of centrist Cabinet appointments instead of his wet dream of an Obama loss.

If we all just collectively bow down before your all knowing political wisdom will you finally stop with the ceaseless self-justification.  You used to actually be an interesting blogger.

And yeah, your right.  The only reason Obama even had a shot at winning was because of the financial crisis.  I'm sure his charisma, political skill, fundraising prowess, and George Bush's approval ratings had absolutely nothing to do with this.  You were so right about Clinton all along and tragically will never have the pleasure of saying I told you so after a democratic loss this year.

I hope you eventually figure out that posts like this are degrading to you, and really even to me for feeling forced to respond to them.

in the primaries, Obama was just appealing to the MoveOn.org crowd with respect to foreign policy? Of course he wasn't some dove George McGovernick. That is not to say I'm glad he won against McCain, and look forward to inauguration. But you'd have to have had your head up your ass to be surprised.

"[Democratic foreign policy experts] will not now secure the mid-level posts which[sic] will enable them to reach the top of the Washington career ladder in future"??

Tears of infinite sadness stream down my cheeks.

Obama never made any pretense that he was anti-war, he is just against this war.  I think he still is and will get our troops home by the date he said in the campaign.  Obama is Commander in Chief, he will determine policy not his advisers.  

As for Kos being the anti-war voice, that is a big joke.  If he was not anti-war in 2005 he is not anti-war person, and in 2005 he was a we broke we fix it guy.  

I have been anti-war with this was since August of 2002 when Bush started talking Iraq invasion.  

I trust Obama and all along the way in the campaign people second guessed him and here he is President-Elect and it was not even close.  Foe Me, until he pulls a Nixon, I am trusting him.  

I hear more from the talking heads and the rightwing media about how upset the progressives are about Obama's cabinet choices than I ever hear from actual progressives.  Most of us have learned that when we second guess him we end up realizing he was right all along.  So now we just assume he knows what he is doing.

Jeez, is anyone surprised at the kind of smug soapboxing Jerome performs anymore? Just dying to shout to all of us sheep, I told you so! Still can't give the man any credit for putting down both the Clinton and GOP machine.

Those of us that want a speedy, yet responsible end to this catastrophe of a war do have 1 important appointee on our side: The President. Good, he's not surrounding himself with yes men or women. Nor is he treating war support as a litmus test. If you payed attention at all during the campaign you could see that Obama if nothing else was a pragmatic realist when it came to Iraq. Thankfully he didn't ignore that the situation on the ground in Iraq changed from the time he announced his candidacy and now. Since when is pulling out on Day X regardless of what's happening on the ground the "progressive position?" or letting the evidence today guide your decisions the "center-right" position? Who the hell hijacks these labels? A bitter blogger that still can't admit he was wrong with dignity?

Not being Bush means more than liberal vs. conservative. It means valuing differing opinions vs. insular yes men, evidence vs. ideology, policy vs. politics, compromise vs. dogmatic rigidness. If you thought Obama was going to stick it to the Republicans, give back to them what they've been giving to us the past decade, then again you weren't paying attention. F-it, I don't care if his entire cabinet are Republicans so long as he accomplishes his agenda.          

PS How can anyone say he's anything with regards to anything when he's not even President yet? He's yet to enact one single policy as President and already you're pretending to be the smartest guy in the room/blog.

For all the staff hand wring see here! (can't embed)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rhPxSm9Es 0w&eurl=http://www.talkingpointsmemo .com/

Very prophetic of him (no pun intended) and shows that even in primaries he had people second guessing him on his staff choices, how did that turn out?

spot on diary, but I'd go a bit further.

first, i vacillated between the two during the primaries, but consistently was in the 'they're both fine by me' camp and remain there. just thrilled that Obama is president.

second, among the reasons that i vacillated is not just that they're so similar policy-wise, despite the attempts to demonize HRC as some sort of right-wing wolf in sheep's clothing. but, actually, that I felt and still feel that, unfortunately, Obama is distinctly more right wing. Not radically so and they're both basically centrist, but on key issues he definitely shades to the right in ways that were clear during the primaries. Specifically:

-LGBT issues, on which he was disturbing in the primaries and which makes his pushing off his promise to change 'don't ask don't tell' unsurprising. HRC had a lot more trust in the LGBT community, for good reason.

-FISA: he ended up backing that awful 'compromise', while HRC stayed firm. Not surprising that his top advisers on intelligence/interrogation, etc appear to be invested in the 'we don't torture, but we may have to do things that seem like torture' mold that I thought we were rid of.

-Health care: obviously Obama's proposal was less wide-ranging.

this doesn't negate the broad areas of agreement, nor that on those 3 issues Obama is WORLDS better than the past regime, so believe you me I'm dancing on the ceilings happy. but it's still worth pointing out the irony that groups committed to partisan fights for liberals vehemently supported a post partisan centrist, a guy who was more conservative than virtually all of his Dem opponents (in fact, I think more conservative than all of them). what's very nice about the HRC to SoS appointment is that it really exposes all the demonization of HRC for what it was: emotional nonsense without a basis in fact.

so...good times: a new and hopefully great president. some terrific appointees including a potentially great SoS. and, also, some things to criticize in re NSA and don't ask/don't tell etc.

Obama only won because of the economic meltdown? How did he manage to beat the Clintons who were much tougher competition then McCain and were not carrying the mark of Bush and the toxic Republican brand. Trying to find an excuse for being absolutely wrong?

What Obama is doing is totally consistent with his rhetoric during the campaign. He is not now and never was a firebreathing progressive ideologue. He is very much a pragmatist and a skilled politician who is intent on actually getting something done. That will in turns piss off both the left and the right but I expect we will see more progressive policy enacted then could ever have been accomplished by more 'progressive' politicians including Hillary.

Jerome, do not permit intransigent nay-sayers to mitigate from your lucid analysis.

It goes without saying that President-elect Obama is approaching his leadership most brilliantly--meaning most pragmatically.  The rhetoric of the campaign is, as it should be, gone.

As an unapologetic Clintonite who believes that Bill Clinton was the best president of my fifty-five year lifetime, I knew at the outset that the only way in which Senator Obama could become the Democratic nominee was to create some sort of wedge issue.  Naturally, Mr. Axelrod knew this only too well.

Still, Hillary Clinton ended up with eighteen million primary votes, so it is absurd to state that she ran a bad primary campaign.  The DNC had pre-determined that they preferred Senator Obama.  There was no victory in terms of popular vote, merely in terms of the will of the DNC egged on by the ever Clinton-hating MSM.

We Clintonites justifiably felt betrayed, and our votes meaningless.  Yet the Clintons themselves ultimately became team players, and their minions followed their example, so that the vast majority of us still placed our ballots with Senator Obama. Those Clinton voters were an instrumental part of his landslide.

As was, indeed, the country's economic meltdown.  Without the Wall Street collapse, FDR's great skills alone could not have secured for him a landslide in 1932.  And for all of his charisma, were it not for Ross Perot's independent draw, Bill Clinton could not have achieved so impressive an electoral landslide in 1992.  This is simple reality, whatever political partisans may say.

Like you, I am much impressed by President-elect Obama's pragmatic skills in this transition period.  As a Clintonite, I am most impressed that he has the self-assurance not merely to engage Senator Clinton but, in effect, superbly utilize the talents of both Clintons on a world stage.

Were the results of the primary reversed, and this were a President-elect Hillary Clinton instead, would not the Senator Obama partisans themselves have demanded no less a deference to their own huge number of voters?  In other words, supposing a President-elect Hillary Clinton had not only not offered the Vice Presidency to her chief rival, but no major cabinet office as well--how then would Obama voters have felt?

What President-elect Obama has achieved is a master-stroke; a move to heal the divide from within and move forcefully toward a world more united from without.

He is, indeed, at core a great pragmatist, as have been all great presidents from Lincoln to FDR to Clinton--not ideologues, inasmuch as George Walker Bush was the ultimate ideologue, and eight years later, we find that our nation is in shambles.

As a fifty-five year old "senior," I would advise my most instransigent friends from both the Obama and Clinton camps, not to look upon President Obama or likely Secretary of State Hillary Clinton as being your enemy.

Look to the MSM as the enemy.  They, collectively, ever stand in the way of progress.  Make the MSM irrelevant, and progress at last can truly come again to the United States.

I supported Obama because he was a pragmatist, not an idealogue.  I'm not sure where all the teeth-gnashing is coming from.  He's pretty much proving to be exactly what I saw in him - an adult with a functioning brain who can give us a "reboot" on the world stage.

If Hillary was running during the Credit Crisis, she would have resurrected her ridiculous "gas tax holiday" and ran up to Washington to try to out-crazy McCain.

We would have had two nuts fighting for TV time instead of one nut and one cool customer.

He's not "the most progressive person we could have possibly hoped to elect as President of the United States." We could have gone a little further I think.

But, he may well be the person who can get the most progressive agenda passed.