Since I’ve already renounced any and all claims to knowing anything about US politics, I’m happily unburdened by any pressure to predict the shape of an Obama cabinet should he win. But what are the experts of the commentariat predicting?
I spent some time this afternoon ranging far and wide over t’internet in search of speculation on who’s in line for the key foreign policy-related posts in an Obama Administration (Secretary of State, Secretary of Defense, Director of National Intelligence, National Security Adviser and Ambassador to the United Nations) – using a thoroughly unscientific but broadly mainstream selection of 20 newspapers, magazines, foreign policy experts and foreign policy bloggers.
As I surveyed this glittering array of insight, these were the names that came up at least three times each:
Why yes, since you ask: four out of the top five names are Republicans. A ‘government of all the talents’, as you might say.
(Gideon Rachman goes further than most in applying this admirable principle: he’s gleefully suggesting Sarah Palin for Ambassador to Russia. As he observes, “The governor’s taste for hunting, plain-spoken talk, and foxy boots—not to mention long years of staring at Russia from Alaska—ensure a special relationship with Putin.”)
