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Not a vote of confidence in sight

One might have hoped that Obama, he of little experience and expertise in leadership or governing anything, might have surrounded himself with experts.

Roger Cohen, writing his op-ed column "Winners and Losers" in The New York Times, isn't that confident that Obama's "people" have the requisite experience, especially as Hilary Clinton, Secretary of State, has been partially side-lined.

"You’ve got to salute Hillary. She’s got guts to go with that razor-sharp mind. It’s a heck of a job being secretary of state when the White House puts a tight collar around the big issues — Afghanistan, Iran, Israel-Palestine and Iraq — and you’re left with Nagorno-Karabakh, disputed Ottoman crimes of World War I and, if you’re lucky, U.S. bases on Okinawa.

The situation might be slightly less troubling if the boys in the White House — and they are overwhelmingly boys — were foreign-policy heavyweights. They’re not. Indeed, I’m told Henry Kissinger refers to them as “the kids.”

Chief among them, according to my colleague Helene Cooper, is Denis McDonough, the National Security Council’s chief of staff. Earlier this month, Cooper wrote: “Forget Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton or Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates. When it comes to national security, Mr. Obama’s inner circle is so tight it largely consists of Mr. McDonough, a 40-year-old from Minnesota who is unknown to most Americans.”

I do know McDonough and I’ve spent a fair amount of time in Minnesota. He has many of the state’s qualities: positive, brisk, can-do, affable and efficient.

But am I reassured when I read that Obama’s national-security inner circle is comprised of him? Nope. He was a great guy to control the foreign-policy side of a campaign — as he did to perfection for Obama — but he’s not a great guy to think big about the world."

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