I've been seeing a lot of wankers losing their shit over the pick of Rahm Emmanuel and possibly Larry Summers for Obama's cabinet. All I've got to say is "Cool it"

What do you expect, for him to pick a bunch of dudes out of college, or what? What I expect is for Obama to essentially have a split of Clintonites and new people. Then, if he gets as much as 8 years, by the end you'll look at his cabinet and at the different departments, etc... and find that Obama has slowly shifted it from the old to a new Generation. What Obama needs right now is competence, no matter who they worked for.

But the important thing to look for is to see what tone Obama sets himself. The cabinet does what the President wants, and from the tight shift we've seen Obama runs, we know the cabinet will do exactly what he says. We only have to look to the current President, George W. Bush, to see that even with old hands (Rumsfeld, Cheney, Powell), a President sets the tone....in Bush's case, a totally mental and nonsensical tone. Oh god how I wish Rummy, Cheny and Powell had made Bush's foreign policy more like Ford's and George Bush Sr.'s

So here's essentially what I'm saying in this little piece: Obama sets the course, not the cabinet. Obama could put Bill Clinton himself in the cabinet, and it would still be a distinct Obama Presidency, not a Clinton Third Term like I've heard some suggest