As President-elect Barack Obama prepares to fill top positions for his incoming government, he faces a stubborn reality: Some of the key individuals he will rely upon to tackle the country’s most serious challenges are holdovers from the current administration — a trio of Bush appointees who will likely stay in place for at least the first year or two of Obama’s presidency.
In confronting the financial crisis and weakening economy, Obama must turn to Ben S. Bernanke, a Republican and former chairman of President Bush’s Council of Economic Advisers, who will lead the Federal Reserve for at least the first year of the new administration.
In assuming control of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, Obama must work with Adm. Michael Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, who was appointed by Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates for a two-year term that will end in late 2009 and, by tradition, can expect to be appointed for a second term as the president’s top military adviser. Mullen shares Obama’s belief in focusing more on Afghanistan but is wary of a timeline for withdrawing troops from Iraq.
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And in guarding against terrorist attacks — while correcting what he considers the Bush administration’s excesses — Obama will rely upon FBI Director Robert S. Mueller III, whose term expires in 2011.
Obama has made it a point of pride to seek consensus with those who do not fully agree with him, and he is even considering keeping Gates at the Pentagon to ensure a smooth transition. But the need to rely heavily on officials who served in the Bush administration — an era from which he promises a sharp break — underscores his constraints. His campaign’s success was based partly on the selection of a team he personally trusted, but in his first years in the White House, he will not be able to rely solely on advisers of his choosing.
“It’s a challenge,” but not an insurmountable one, said William A. Galston, a domestic policy adviser to President Bill Clinton. Bernanke, Mullen and Mueller “appear to be genuinely public-spirited civil servants and not rabid partisans,” he said, adding that “if you’re thinking about how to deal with someone like J. Edgar Hoover, this is not what we’re talking about.”
November 10th, 2008 at 1:30 pm
This article is misleading Obama can get rid of Ben Bernanke if he wants to do so, but that will require Bernanke being accused of starting this whole mess in the first place. Obama can even trash the federal reserve and get this country back on the Gold Standard if he wants to do so.
Michael Mullen will stay. They can agree to disagree about Iraq but Mullen’s replacement will be in place long before the new pullout plan ends.
Finally, Robert Mueller will likely stay unless he resigns his post. Obama doesn’t have too much interaction with him, but his Attorney General will and it will be an uneasy relationship. Not only didn’t I vote for Obama, but I believe that he may illegally be President, still he must be supported and the best support I can give him with working with Bush appointments is just be cool and allow for them to do the best they can do. Shockenly, this includes working with John Roberts on January 20th.