Team of Rivals

I have found, through the Poetry Hut Blog, the books blog at the Guardian. on which Graeme Allistar has posted this reflection on Barack Obama’s “Team of Rivals“:

Over the course of a marathon American election campaign, the buzzwords and catchphrases kept on coming. Both pigs and pitbulls wore lipstick; Joe Sixpack and Joe the Plumber cropped up everywhere; hockey moms and fist-bumps entered the language. And now that the circus is over, there’s a new one: “team of rivals”. It refers to Obama’s plan to bring Republicans and political foes into his cabinet, especially the ongoing speculation that Hillary Clinton might be made Secretary of State.

While “team of rivals” has been used exhaustively, less is mentioned about its origin. Its the title of an acclaimed historical study of Abraham Lincoln’s political manoeuvring in which he appointed the other presidential candidates he ran against to senior positions, despite their personal animosity. Written by Harvard-based Doris Kearns Goodwin, formerly an assistant to Lyndon Johnson, it was published in 2005.

Though the phrase has only reached ubiquity in the past week, Obama has been talking about the “wonderful” book and its lessons since May, before he’d even secured the Democratic nomination.

Read the whole post. It’s worth your time.

And there is always a contrary view.

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Meanwhile, on the unexpected consequences front, George W. Bush set out to revolutionize the way the world works and it looks like he’s accomplished just that. Also here.

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