Take One (Oval Office) for the Team

A brilliant idea in a letter to Eric Alterman today from the aptly named Jim Wiseman:

While we're on the subject, whoever wins the Democratic nomination ought to take a page from Abe Lincoln's book, and unite the party by filling his cabinet with heavyweights. Furthermore, take an additional page from the British, and announce it in advance of the election. Thus for example, if Edwards/Obama was the ticket, publish a shadow cabinet of (say) Hillary Clinton as Secretary of State, Wesley Clark as Secretary of Defense, Bill Richardson as Secretary of Health and Human Services, Dennis Kucinich as Secretary of Labor, Bill Clinton as Ambassador to the UN, and as a cabinet level Energy Czar... who else but Al Gore. Gore might accept if he was given the funding, and a mandate to make the US the world leader in reducing greenhouse emissions.

In any case, such an approach might finally unite the party, and allow us to move forward from a position of strength -- so that the party ceased to be perceived as simply a catch -- all for everyone who doesn't like the far right agenda. But it would also be good government, as Lincoln proved. Why does personal loyalty to the President have to be the first prerequisite of a cabinet post?

I'm all for this--if only they all weren't politicians. (And it does seem a bit like a special episode of Batman in reverse....)