Friends have asked me over the past month what I thought about Obama appointing all of these old Clinton-type people to his cabinet. Didn’t this mean he was reneging on his promise of “change”?

“No”, I would answer. The similarity between Obama and Bill Clinton is that they are both highly intelligent. The difference is that Obama has a vision, and some reasonably firm principles, whereas Clinton stood for nothing other than himself. Clinton showed this during his two terms, and he showed it in spades in his behavior after he left office, especially during this past election.

What this means is that Obama will lead these strong politicos, and mold their actions to his vision, while politely listening to them. All of the great presidents have done this.

Now, that idea seems so obvious to me it didn’t seem worth blogging about. But then Illinois Governor Blagojevich got arrested for corruption yesterday. We learn that Obama was close enough to the situation to make this the biggest front page story on the New York Times for the past 48 hours.

What does that corruption case have to do with Obama’s cabinet picks?

Think about it, dude! The interesting thing is not who he did pick. It’s who he did not pick. Specifically, he did not pick old cronies to whom he owed political “favors” for his meteoric political rise from the bowels of the Illinois State House.

In other words, Obama is not a Chicago politician, even though he seems to have come from there.

Just read the Blagojevich Indictment. Look at the metric this criminal was using for political appointments. Here it is: Will they give me a buck? Now, that’s criminal.

But I don’t think it’s that far from the metric Rahm Emmanuel used for picking House candidates in the 2006 election. Here it is: Can they make a buck (i.e. raise contributions for themselves)? Of course, that metric is not criminal. It is venal though.

What is Obama’s metric for filling out his cabinet posts? To me, it seems to be a combination of:

1. competence/intelligence
2. “keep your friends close, and your enemies closer”

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again … You, me, and the other 300 million of us are damn lucky we have — in the words of commenter Matt — the “Great Mullato Hope” standing up to take the pledge next month.