A Cautionary Note

Barack Obama has been touting his concept – borrowed from Doris Kearns Goodwin’s “Team of Rivals” – of what he envisions as a plan for forming his cabinet. The media has gleefully repeated the message over and over. Well, Civil War Historian Matthew Pinsker points out that things are just a wee bit more complicated than the rosy picture Obama and the media think they see.

Consider this inconvenient truth: Out of the four leading vote-getters for the 1860 Republican presidential nomination whom Lincoln placed on his original team, three left during his first term — one in disgrace, one in defiance and one in disgust……

…..Over the years, it has become easy to forget that hard edge and the once bad times that nearly destroyed a president. Lincoln’s Cabinet was no team. His rivals proved to be uneven as subordinates. Some were capable despite their personal disloyalty, yet others were simply disastrous.

Pinsker contends that the Team of Rivals theory of Lincoln’s cabinet should be a cautionary tale, not a roadmap. Having read rather a lot of the history of that period, I can tell you that I have always held a pretty low opinion of many of Lincoln’s cabinet. Some of them were treacherous, some hopelessly corrupt. Or both.

Every day now, yet another Clintonista name floats up in a trial balloon. In fact, it looks like a graduation ceremony at a clown college some days. My wife, not political at all, asked me today where the change was if the same gang is going back into the White House.

I told her I saw no signs of any real change. But a rivalry of teams is emerging.