The Washington press corps fell in love with this narrative based on Doris Kearns Goodwin's Team of Rivals, a book about how Abraham Lincoln assembled his Cabinet. The incoming Obama administration and top Democrats turned a deaf ear to outsiders who warned about the practical consequences of following such a route in modern Washington.
There was always the danger that these powerful "rivals would fill key staff positions with subordinates who didn't share the new President's goals and then essentially hijack a sensitive policy decision.
That situation appears to have arrived as Obama finds himself caged in by war hawks -- Gates, Petraeus, McChrystal and Clinton -- determined to escalate the war in Afghanistan.
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