Obama's Cabinet: Looking A Little Like The Nineties

Well, we must admit to being pleasantly surprised by President-Elect Barack Obama's cabinet picks (both confirmed and probable) so far.

Rather than reach out into the murky depths of the far-left, many of whom believe, wrongly, that they "elected" the President-Elect single-handed, Obama has instead looked backward to the Clinton Administration for experienced hands at the wheel in these times of uncertainty.

We have already mentioned his selection as White House Chief of Staff, Rahm Emmanuel, who we very much hope will be kept busy keeping the Democratic-controlled Congress under control over the next few months.

This Monday, President-Elect Obama announced the key members of his economic team including Timothy Geithner as his Treasury Secretary.

Mr Geithner, who served as president of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, has been working already with the current Treasury Secretary, Henry Paulson, on the current economic crisis and should both be able to hit the ground running and will probably continue with the policies that are already in place to help failing fanancial institutions and free up the credit markets.

Christina Romer, the President-Elect's choice as chair of the White House Council of Economic Advisors is also one that can be welcomed by those on both sides of the political divide.

An economics professor with a specialty in the Great Depression, she is widely known for being bipartisan in her work and holds the belief that higher taxes are bad for the economy in general because they cut output.

Larry Summers was chosen as the nominee for director of the National Economic Council and served as Treasury Secretary under former President Clinton.

At that time he made several enemies on the Democratic side by, perhaps far-sightedly, joining with Republicans in calling for increased regulation of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.

On the other front whicvh greatly concerns us - that of National Security - President-Elect Obama also seems to be playing things carefully.

Announced on Tuesday was the news that the current Secretary of Defence has been asked to remain in that role for the foreseeable future.

This suggests that, despite the President-Elect's campaign promises, there will be no cut-and-run from Iraq - in our opinion, very good news indeed.

We are at the point in time where victory in Iraq, by all conceivable measures is right around the corner; it would be a shame to throw it all away and allow the fundamentalists to grow in strength again.

New York's junior Senator Hilary Clinton is also a wise choice for Secretary of State in an Obama Administration.

Not only does this help heal the wounds inflicted in the bruising Primary campaign, it also brings his biggest potential detractor back into the fold, meaning he can focus on the job at hand rather than worrying about who might be stabbing him in the back (assuming Emmanuel handles the Congress in his own indomitable way).

The one poor choice so far, in our opinion, is the possible selection of Eric Holder as Attorney General.

Mr Holder has a history in the Justice Department from the time when he served as a Deputy Attorney General in the Clinton Administration.

This history includes the low points of the Marc Rich pardon and the seizure at gun-point (denied at the time by Mr Holder) of Elian Gonzalez.

We certainly hope that the President-Elect will rethink this decision. If not he'll certainly face an uphill battle to get Mr Holder confirmed in the Senate, while the press drags up all his most egrarious gaffs.

All in all though, there is much to reassure those in the center, whether center-left or right.