Cabinet hopes

Washington Post on Wall Street's gushing over someone who should have resigned over the financial crisis rather than be promoted. And Julius Gaius Rodham Clinton as Foreign Minister. Why? Didn't Obama take her to pieces on foreign policy in the primaries - certainly on Iraq he has much more credibility. Whatever makes the Israeli-US axis stronger. I'm sure if Senator Lieberman hadn't outdone himself as such a disgusting turncoat that Obama would be after him instead.

But,

Compared to Wolfowitz and Rumsfeld and Rice (and their neo-con ideologues on the domestic side like Alito and Snow) - appointed by Bush (or should that be the other way around) - whatever team Obama comes up with will be gold.

A Democrat and a relative unknown outside the world of high finance, Geithner has worked closely with Treasury Secretary Henry M. Paulson Jr. to devise responses to the most critical events of the market turmoil, including the bailouts of the investment bank Bear Stearns and the insurance giant American International Group. Like Paulson, Geithner believes that the Treasury should be given vast powers to develop experimental strategies for responding to the crisis and the flexibility to abandon them if they don't work.

Geithner's mentor is Lawrence H. Summers, 53, a Treasury secretary during the Clinton administration [...] will go to the White House and serve as a senior economic adviser to Obama, according to a senior Democratic official familiar with the matter.
[...]
Joining Summers in the White House would be Jason Furman, 38, as a top economic adviser; Peter R. Orszag, 39, as White House budget director; and Austan Goolsbee, 39, on the president's Council of Economic Advisers, sources familiar with the matter said.

So Gen Xers at the table with the ability to "develop experimental strategies" with vast sums of US taxpayers money. This sounds like either brilliance or insanity.

Compare the lengthy process in the US of seeking competent people for the job and the Senate confirmation hearings into each candidate for ministerial office to our own Westminster system. The only similarity is that a person who isn't an MP can be sworn into office as a Cabinet Minister (but must resign if they are not declared officially elected). Most ministers have been put through the grinder at parliament so a process of legislative grilling by their fellow MPs is probably meaningless and will necessarily be partisan. In the US the President can nominate whoever they want for his cabinet portfolios, and this can take many weeks. It makes the haste in which Key has formed the new government - before anything has really been ironed out - even more staggering.

That's the main game element of coalition negotiations: the longer the deal takes the bigger the gains for the minor party. I was advocating about three weeks for the Maori Party if it were in a position to set the agenda; but Key was setting the agenda. By restricting the time available for negotiation and forcing the pace Key was able to sign off on a very favourable deal for National that yields little to other parties and avoids having to make a single dollar-figure commitment (bar the Maori Party's extra staff member for Maori electorates and large rural electorates - which also benefits National and no one else). By openly courting the Maori Party from Day One and announcing he was talking to them in his victory speech on Election night he was also sending a message to Hide that he did not have much leverage. And Key cut a quick deal, made the trade, and flew out to APEC as PM in under a fortnight. Remarkable.

There are no solid number promises on anything and National retains all the purse strings. That's a very comfy deal for the Nats, something that could not have happened if Act and the Maori Party had co-operated and/or had they let the negotiations go for four weeks (like the last Labour deal took). Now if Key could make use of that type of ability in the trade area he could be of great service.