Opinion
One of the measures of a leader is the calibre of the team he or she leads. On that measure, President Barack Obama has done well. Around his Cabinet table he has placed some names who would threaten to outshine him if he did not have a first-rate
mind, and who probably would not work for him if he posed a risk to their reputations.
His Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton, is most obviously in the category. Having fought him to the bitter end of the Democratic Party primaries last year, she would not be giving up her Senate seat and casting her lot with his if she did not believe he was capable of governing successfully for a full eight years.
Defence Secretary Robert Gates is another. He is staying in the position he held in the Bush Administration, where he oversaw the troop "surge" in Iraq. It is unlikely he would be staying on if he believed he would be part of a dishonourable withdrawal from Iraq or a decline in military standards generally.
A third big name is that of economist Larry Summers, who served in the Clinton Administration and probably would not be staking his academic and public service credentials on a young President he did not believe to be capable and determined to tackle the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression.
The choice of Mrs Clinton suggests the new President is not vindictive. The adoption of Mr Gates shows Mr Obama is capable of embracing Republicans. The appointment of Mr Summers to head his National Economic Council means he wants a range of advice on the most urgent problem facing him. His Treasury Secretary, Tim Geithner, also comes from a formidable position as head of the New York Federal Reserve, and also served the Bush Administration in recent attempts to revive the financial system.
Apart from Mr Geithner, all the new President's leading Cabinet appointees are older than he is. They include former Senate majority leader Tom Daschle who, as Secretary of Health and Human Services, may have to spearhead another attempt to reform the United States' costly health system and provide better coverage for the poor.
If these familiar names have disappointed Obama enthusiasts looking for new faces, they provide reassurance that the President is not so carried away by his own rhetoric and success that he does not feel the need of experienced advice. Indeed, in debates and interviews during the campaign, Mr Obama appealed as a thinking person, respectful of other views and aware, as all intelligent people are, of how much there is still to learn.
As in all Cabinets, the leader will take more interest in some subjects than others. Many of those in domestic posts will run their departments with minimal interference from the President as long as they stay out of the news. But those dealing in foreign affairs - State, Defence, head of the National Security Council, director of the CIA - will be players on a world stage with him.
But they will work in their respective departments and they are unlikely to be the President's closest confidants. Within the White House every President keeps a staff of political and policy advisers who comprise a kitchen cabinet more intimate and usually more influential than the public appointees.
Mr Obama's head of staff, former Congressman Rahm Emanuel, is probably now the second most powerful person in the world.
The public faces of the Administration, at least, are familiar and impressive. But then so were names such as Donald Rumsfeld and Colin Powell at the beginning of the previous one. There will be rivalry and frustrations in the Obama Cabinet, too, but this President could be better at inviting different views and bringing out the best.
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