THE BIG IDEA -- David S. Broder's Sunday WashPost column, 'Obama's A- Team: Remarkable Cohesion on National Security': 'Official Washington is starting to realize that in addition to his personal skills, Obama has assembled a highly professional and effective national security team that serves him and the nation very well. There was no guarantee that this would be the case. Before he was elected, Obama had never faced the challenge of recruiting, assigning and organizing an administration. His exposure to national security issues consisted of four years of hardly notable service on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and the insights gleaned from his youthful years in Indonesia. His first -- and in some ways most important decision -- was to ask Robert Gates, George W. Bush's defense secretary, to remain in charge of the Pentagon. Gates was anything but an obvious choice. Obama had campaigned as a sharp critic of Bush policy in Iraq and had clearly signaled that he would in sist on a new approach to Afghanistan. Keeping the boss of the old policies was counterintuitive -- and offensive to some of Obama's Democratic allies.
'But Obama recognized Gates's strengths. And he bolstered the team when he picked as his national security adviser retired Marine general Jim Jones, another widely respected veteran of past administrations and a man of great self-discipline and few ego needs. The choice of Hillary Clinton was the most dramatic given their history as rivals in a protracted battle for the nomination ... In Vice President Biden, Obama picked a vivid personality with more years of experience in foreign policy than almost anyone else in Congress. Biden, as is his wont, has at times strayed from the Obama line -- but the president clearly trusts him and has given him major responsibilities. ...
'I'm told by the White House that the president asked for a review of the missile defense plans in March, that the Pentagon held some 120 internal meetings on the issue and that the National Security Council staff conferred 15 to 18 times, culminating in four sessions of the NSC deputies in August and September and two meetings of the principals -- the Cabinet officers and the other statutory members -- preparing for a presidential decision. All this without a single leak. The inclusiveness of the process was affirmed by the immediate public endorsements by the Pentagon, the State Department and the intelligence agencies. In the end, Gates, who had signed off on the original Bush plan in 2006, emerged as one of the most forceful advocates for redoing it -- another example of his intellectual and political courage.' http://bit.ly/MjQTB