Nov 19, 2008 11:00 pm US/Central
Good To Know: A Team Of Rivals
(WCCO)
President-elect Barack Obama has picked more of his cabinet, and Hillary Clinton is up for Secretary of State. By all accounts, she wants the job. Don Shelby says Obama once predicted a cabinet as a "team of rivals."
He was referring to Doris Kearns Goodwin's "A Team of Rivals." It was about Abraham Lincoln's cabinet choices.
He picked three men who ran against him for the Republican nomination. They were bitter opponents. But, Lincoln felt they were the best people for the jobs.
Barack Obama first opened this line of thinking back in May in Boca Raton, Florida. He referred to the book, and since, has made good on the theme by picking Joe Biden as his Vice President, and Hillary Clinton as Secretary of State.
He said in May that if John McCain was the best fit for the head of Department of Homeland Security, he wouldn't hesitate to pick him.
If there is science behind the notion of keeping your friends close and your enemies even closer, then Abraham Lincoln made it an art. We'll see if President-elect Obama is such an artist.
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