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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