Who Will Be the Last One Standing?

William Saxbe died yesterday at the age of 94.

If you aren't old enough to remember the Richard Nixon and Gerald Ford presidencies, you might not recognize that name. But Saxbe was Nixon's attorney general during the final year of the Watergate scandal, and he remained in the Cabinet to serve as the attorney general under Ford — at least for the first six months of the Ford presidency.

Now, I'm old enough to remember much of the Nixon administration. And I can tell you that, for many reasons, Cabinet members seemed to be cheap and plentiful when Nixon was president. Twenty–nine different men held the 12 unelected Cabinet posts that existed during Nixon's 5½–year administration. Two of them served in two different Cabinet posts.

Nixon was a complicated man, a man whose own insecurities, fears and suspicions loomed over all the activities in his White House. And one of the clear underlying themes of everything in those days — from Woodward and Bernstein's reporting for the Washington Post to the Senate hearings to Nixon's famous transcripts — was how paranoid everyone in Nixon's administration became.

Even the people who voted for Nixon didn't particularly care for him. One of my earliest memories of Nixon was of his supporters describing him as "the lesser of evils."

And I must admit that I felt discouraged when I heard that. I had read inspiring stories of other presidents — George Washington, Abraham Lincoln, Teddy Roosevelt. I had heard my parents speak admiringly of Franklin D. Roosevelt and John F. Kennedy. And I hoped that, one day, America would elect a president who would inspire me during my lifetime.

But that president was not Richard Nixon.

There was a sense of fear that surrounded Nixon's presidency, a sense that anyone who spoke against him publicly was finished in Washington. So a shroud of enabling silence descended over the Nixon White House.

But his presidency ended 36 years ago. Nixon himself passed away 16 years ago. You would have to think that, even from a group of men as large as the one that served in his Cabinet, there would be few left after 36 years.

So, when I saw that Saxbe had died, it got me to wondering. Was he the last? Or was anyone left from the Nixon years?

I guess, if I had stopped to think about it, I would have realized that at least one Nixon Cabinet member — Henry Kissinger — is still living. He's 87.

Most of the notorious members of Nixon's Cabinets are gone now — John Mitchell, for example, who was one of Saxbe's predecessors at the Department of Justice, and John Connally, who served at the Department of the Treasury.

But I was astonished to learn that more than one–quarter of the men who served on Nixon's Cabinet at one time or another are still alive.

Kissinger is probably the best known of the bunch, but one of Nixon's Labor secretaries, George Shultz, also was prominent in the early days of the Reagan administration as Al Haig's replacement at the State Department. Shultz is 89 now.

Another name that some people will recognize is that of James Schlesinger. He was Defense secretary under both Nixon and Ford, then went on to serve as the head of the newly created Department of Energy during Jimmy Carter's presidency. Schlesinger is now 81.

Those who remember the Nixon presidency also may remember the name of Melvin Laird, who was Nixon's first secretary of Defense. He, too, is still living. Like Kissinger, he is 87.

The other four probably aren't very well known to most Americans. I doubt that they were very well known to most Americans even when they were serving in the Cabinet. They are:

1. James Hodgson, 94, former secretary of Labor;


2. Frederick Dent, 88, former secretary of Commerce;


3. Peter Peterson, 84, former secretary of Commerce; and


4. James Lynn, 83, former secretary of Housing and Urban Development.

Who do you think will be the last one standing from the Nixon administration?

The Best Line of the Day

Actually, I don't know where this line originated. I just became aware of it while I was reading an entry in the Powerline blog titled, "The Difference Between Obama and Jesus." But Powerline acknowledged picking up the line from Instapundit.com.

Well, given all the suggestions that Barack Obama is "The Messiah" — as well as his problems with his Cabinet appointees, the latest of which is the withdrawal of H. Rodgin Cohen from consideration for Deputy Treasury Secretary — the line is too good not to share with my readers.

It reminds me of my days on newspaper copy desks, when turning a clever phrase into an eye-catching headline seldom meant much in the way of recognition except from my colleagues (although earning their admiration that way always had a certain amount of value for me).

Anyway, I'll keep you in suspense no longer. As Powerline put it, the difference between Obama and Jesus is/was ... "Jesus knew how to build a cabinet."

A tip of the hat to whoever came up with that one.

Obama's Cabinet

It really is astonishing to me the problems that Barack Obama is encountering with some of his Cabinet picks — even with the high level of support the new president seems to have from the people and the members of Congress (including some of the Republican members, although you couldn't tell it from the House vote on the stimulus plan last week).

And some of his selections have virtually sailed through their confirmations, when I expected them to face more resistance. Hillary Clinton, for example. No matter what one thinks of her experiences and background and whether they qualify her for the post of secretary of state, she's clearly a polarizing figure — yet she won almost unanimous approval from the Senate.

Tom Daschle, on the other hand, was a member of the Senate more than twice as long as Clinton. He served as majority leader for about 18 months. Prior to his service in the Senate, he was in the House for about eight years. Although he had his detractors in Congress in the years he spent there, he was never the lightning rod Clinton is. Yet he's run into many problems on his way to being confirmed as secretary of health and human services.

And, at the moment, it seems far from certain that Daschle will win the Senate's approval and join Clinton in future Cabinet meetings. Even the New York Times thinks he should withdraw.

Yet, for Daschle, there may be a ray of hope coming from the somewhat uneasy confirmation given to Obama's choice for attorney general, Eric Holder. Holder won confirmation by a vote of 75-21. No Democrats voted against Holder — although two did not vote — and nearly half of the Republicans voted in favor of him — in spite of his controversial role in the pardon of fugitive Marc Rich in the final days of Bill Clinton's presidency.

Now comes the news that Obama has designated New Hampshire Sen. Judd Gregg, a Republican, to be secretary of commerce.

Yesterday, I was listening to the radio and I heard a conservative commentator fretting about the nomination of Gregg and how the Democratic governor of New Hampshire would probably appoint a fellow Democrat to replace him — therefore achieving what the Democrats could not achieve at the ballot box last November — a "filibuster-proof" 60-seat majority in the Senate.

That concern appears to be baseless. According to David Rogers at Politico.com, the New Hampshire governor, John Lynch, will issue a statement today (supposedly coinciding with Obama's announcement of Gregg's nomination) that the seat will remain in Republican hands.

CNN says it has confirmed both that Gregg has accepted the offer from Obama and the New Hampshire governor's office has said that the seat will remain Republican.

"But lost in the shuffle is the greater dynamic," writes Rogers, "Gregg himself and the fact that Obama, while talking a good game about bipartisanship, is draining the Senate of the very talent he needs to achieve this goal."

As Rogers points out, Gregg has a history of being a fiscal conservative, but he has an independent streak. It's hard to gain a hold on his position based on ratings from the National Journal — in 2005, Gregg's rating on economic issues seemed to be more centrist, but it veered far to the right the following year.

In some of his key votes in recent years, Gregg voted to repeal the estate tax, he voted against raising the minimum wage, and he supported funding for embryonic stem cell research.

While having Gregg in the Cabinet will certainly help Obama and may make it easier for Republicans to accept economic policies from the White House, the absence of his ability to compromise and reach across the aisle in the Senate could be a blow to the desire for bipartisan action on a whole batch of policy proposals.

And, while the Republican Party has been reduced to minority status, it still commands a large following in some parts of the country.

One of the many mistakes the Republicans made during George W. Bush's presidency was to treat their Democratic counterparts as if they were irrelevant. When political tides began to shift, they had burned their bridges and found few, if any, Democrats willing to compromise with them.

It's a fine line Obama must tread as president. He leads a party that holds large majorities in both houses of Congress, but power can be fleeting. It may seem unlikely now, but Obama could find himself leading the minority party midway through his term in office, the same as Clinton did.

That will depend on the decisions he makes today.

Sources Say Clinton Announcement to be Monday

CNN is reporting that sources in the Democratic Party are saying Hillary Clinton's nomination to be secretary of state will be announced tomorrow.

She could hardly become the secretary of state-designate at a more perilous time. The attacks on Mumbai have prompted The Telegraph of London to proclaim India one of the 20 most dangerous places in the world.

The Washington Post editorializes that India and Pakistan must work together to preserve the peace. "The United States ... must continue nudging these two rivals toward cooperation," writes the Post.

As secretary of state, that will be Clinton's mission. One of many.

Dean Nelson writes, in The Times of London, that authorities in India "claimed to have proof that the Mumbai terrorists were receiving instructions from Pakistan and discussing tactics with their handlers during the three days of attacks in which they killed at least 195 people," an allegation that is all but guaranteed to raise the tension level in that part of the world.

Joshua Kurlantzick warns, in The New Republic, that terrorism won't be beaten in India any time soon.

It is also said that Obama will announce tomorrow that Defense Secretary Robert Gates is staying and retired Marine Gen. Jim Jones will be national security adviser.

"All of the selections are hardly a surprise after weeks of fevered speculation," reports Ed Henry of CNN. "In fact, they're such an open secret that retiring Republican Sen. John Warner, a veteran member of the Armed Services Committee, released a statement Saturday night praising all three nominees before they have been officially named at Monday's rollout."

Gates is already in office, but there's plenty to keep Clinton and Jones occupied until they start their new jobs in the next couple of months.

It seems hardly likely that the importance of Mumbai in foreign affairs will diminish in any way between now and the inauguration. But until this past week, many Westerners didn't seem to understand the vital role Mumbai plays in maintaining economic stability in that part of the world.

Today, only a few days after the terrorist attacks in that city, India and Pakistan appear to be mobilizing — possibly for war.

DEBKAfile reports that "Asia's two nuclear powers, India and Pakistan, took their first steps towards a conventional war. India, claiming evidence of Pakistan's involvement in the Islamist terrorist assault on Mumbai, placed its air and missile units on war preparedness, while Pakistan, disclaiming the charge, diverted its armed divisions from the Afghan border to its frontier with India."

The escalating tension between Hindus and Muslims, combined with the presence of nuclear arms on both sides, makes it a hot spot in international politics.

It's not the only one, of course. Just the one that's been in the news lately.

"[T]he attacks will aggravate a growing fault line between Hindus and Muslims within India itself," cautions Robert Kaplan in The Atlantic.

There's no shortage of those who are ready to point fingers at the real culprits and victims in these attacks.

"We already know what we really need to know," writes Tim Rutten in the Los Angeles Times. "The sites of their attacks may vary ... but the object of their quarrel with history remains the same: modernity."

Mark Steyn warns, in the Orange County Register, that the attacks in Mumbai could happen again — anywhere, anytime. He's right, of course, but there are certain things that make some places less likely to be targets than others.

Major commercial centers are always prime targets, especially at a time when the global economy is struggling. It's one of the factors that has made New York such an appealing target for terrorists in the past.

To say that it could happen anywhere any time may well be true, but it isn't accurate. It misleads the listener into thinking that the local Holiday Inn is as likely to be attacked as the Taj Mahal Palace Hotel in Mumbai.

That's how fear operates.

The Value of Experience

Like many others these days — editorial writers, columnists, bloggers — Laura Meckler and Jonathan Weisman, in the Wall Street Journal, bemoan Barack Obama's reliance on experience in his selections to fill positions in the incoming administration.

Obama's most recent choices — former Senate majority leader Tom Daschle to head Health and Human Services and Jacob Lew, a budget director for former President Clinton, to lead the National Economic Council — "highlighted the three personnel pools" from which picks are being made, Meckler and Weisman write:

1. "Most prominent are Clinton administration veterans." Included in this group is Hillary Clinton herself, who may be the leading candidate for secretary of state. Certainly Lew falls into this group.


2. "Some high-profile appointments are also long-serving members and staff from Capitol Hill." Daschle, who served three terms in the U.S. Senate after being elected to the House four times, clearly belongs in the second group.


3. "Then there are the influential Chicagoans — a group that seems smaller than the hometown crowd that usually accompanies a new president to Washington."
   
   That "hometown crowd," they write, is noticeably smaller than the ones "George W. Bush brought in from Texas, Bill Clinton from Arkansas and Jimmy Carter from Georgia. Those presidents were former governors and had large cadres of state-level aides to draw from. Mr. Obama, by contrast, has just a handful of key political advisers."

Lots of folks — from both sides of the political spectrum — are talking about this — almost as if it's some kind of betrayal by Obama.

Conservative Michelle Malkin calls it "recycling you can believe in."

Jennifer Rubin strikes a similar note in Pajamas Media.

"If several months ago someone had said that the Obama administration would be chocked full of Clinton administration retreads and have a national security team featuring the woman who advocated bombing Iran to smithereens in the event it launched a nuclear attack on Israel," Rubin writes, "few would have believed it. But that’s what seems to be in the offing."

I'm inclined to agree with Robert Stein in The Moderate Voice.

"Obama’s goal all along was to persuade voters wary of his inexperience that the best of the past would not be swept away in rhetorical enthusiasm for the new," writes Stein.

"He is fulfilling that promise and concentrating on the real change from the Bush-Cheney years, bringing competence back to Washington, wherever he finds it — in the over-touted Lincolnesque 'team of rivals' or in the best of the 1990s."

It makes sense, to me, that Obama would seek people with experience in the Clinton administration — in spite of the fact that Mrs. Clinton was his main challenger in the primaries.

"To insist on a government that has no experience would serve neither the incoming president nor a nation beset by problems," writes the Washington Post.

In order to get people with experience in a Democratic administration that was not led by Bill Clinton, Obama would need to dip into the pool of veterans from the Carter administration. They left office almost 28 years ago. Many are no longer living.

President Carter himself is in his 80s now. It's reasonable to think that most of the people from his administration who are still alive are in roughly the same age range.

A few are not quite in their 80s — but, honestly, do the people who voted for Obama want important government posts — like secretary of state or attorney general — to go to someone who is older than John McCain? And whose executive experience may — I might add — predate the Reagan presidency?

The most recent pool of people with experience in the executive branch are veterans of the nearly eight-year George W. Bush administration.

How do you suppose Obama's supporters would react if he picked someone from Bush's team for his administration?

(And, incidentally, it seems increasingly likely that a few — including Robert Gates, Donald Rumsfeld's replacement at Defense — will remain after the rest of the Bush team departs in January.)

Will Hillary Be the Next Secretary of State?

Were you dismayed by reports that John Kerry might be chosen to be the next secretary of state?

Or Bill Richardson? Or Chuck Hagel?

Reports tonight are introducing a new name into the mix of those who might be chosen.

According to the Associated Press, Sen. Hillary Clinton is emerging as a contender for the post.

"Clinton ... was rumored to be a contender for the job last week," writes AP's Liz Sidoti, "but the talk died down as party activists questioned whether she was best-suited to be the nation's top diplomat in an Obama administration."

That changed with some of the president-elect's appointments in recent days, she writes.

"The talk resumed in Washington and elsewhere Thursday, a day after Obama named several former aides to President Bill Clinton to help run his transition effort."

Of the names that I've heard mentioned in connection with the post, my preference would be Richardson — although naming Hagel might be a good gesture for bipartisanship.

What are your thoughts?