Your comment is very insightful.

It’s clear one of the reasons that the Democratic Congressional Leadership supports Obama rather than Clinton is that the Clinton’s have a machine that is intertwined with but independent of the Democratic Party. Obama doesn’t.

His agenda will be naturally hostage to what Pelosi and Reid value, more so than Clintons (who love to “triangulate”) or McCain (who likewise has worked across-the-aisle on high-intensity issues).

1). As the Obsidian Wings link mentions, Obama has worked across the ailse on several low intensity issues. While non-proliferation and avian flu prepardness are important, these matters don’t require a person to take a great deal of risk or expend political capital but appointing members of the opposite party to your cabinet might require both.

2). On a related front, President Obama will be under tremendous pressure to take a victory lap, so-to-speak, assuming the Democrats have a great year down ticket. With an expanded majority in both houses (maybe filibuster proof?) the leadership on the Hill will be in no mood for bipartisanship. They’ll approve whoever he appoints, but if he appoints someone they don’t like or pays too much deference to Republicans they can stall his legislative agenda, especially when I think its safe to say that an important Senator named Joe Biden wants either state or defense.

So even if Obama really does wants a bipartisan cabinet, he won’t be able to do it without taking a huge gamble, something he has rarely done in either the U.S. or Illinois State Senate(1).

Presidents don’t get to vote “present”.

(1)http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2007/02/the_everpresent_obama.html

Given the choice between a centrist Democrat who rules through the party, and a liberal Democrat who forms alliances of convenience, I’d take outcomes (centrist policies) over process (bipartisanship).

[1] http://nj.nationaljournal.com/voteratings/

More on his bipartisan record in the Senate…

http://obsidianwings.blogs.com/obsidian_wings/2006/10/barack_obama.html

I am also impressed by the fact that as I said before, he has mentioned Republicans by name (Hagel, Lugar) for important roles in his administration. To me that is the sort of cabinet we need for any administration, Republican or Democrat, where the president selects the best people for the position. I understand the need for trust and general ideological cohesiveness, but that has seemingly rarely been the case in most administrations in any way so why limit the pool to just one political party?

I’m not sure what you mean. The possibilities I see are:

a) You hope Obama will surround himself with various politicians from all parties.
b) You have seen him do this.
c) You see him supporting those who hold contrary positions, and elevating them to positions of trust.

Could you clarify?

Are you judging Obama by his words, or who he has surrounded himself with in the past?

Seerov,

Wright appears to be distance between mean white and mean black scores in general intelligence, and recognizing both that this leads to different normative behavior and that practice can nonetheless lead to excellent performance with some domains.

I fear his valid point in this one area will be lost in the sea of nonsense in which is bobs adrift.

David Hallowell,

JustOneMinute tracks the story [1], while Sharpton joins the fray [2].

My suspicion at the time of the Jena 6 nonsense was that it was an attempt by black leaders to harm Obama, to show their power and ability to extort him in the future. This appears to be round 2.

[1] http://justoneminute.typepad.com/main/2008/04/feelin-bad-for.html
[2] http://www.nypost.com/seven/04292008/news/regionalnews/sharpton_raps_obama_108577.htm