Is Obama playing it safe with his cabinet?

As the new cabinet starts to take shape, Barack Obama has named Tom Daschle (pictured) as his secretary of health and human services. Daschle, an advisor to Obama on the long campaign trail, is now the person charged with reviving an ailing American healthcare system – a task that both John McCain and Barack Obama thought would form the focus of their campaigns before the American economy began to fail.

"Daschle is a departure from Obama's thus-far Clinton-heavy line-up," says Daniel Nasaw in the Guardian, pointing out that most of Obama's selections so far have experience serving in Bill Clinton's administration. On the New York Times though, David D Kirkpatrick is concerned that because of his work as a healthcare advisor for a private company, Daschle represents a conflict of interests that Obama vowed to avoid. Until now, that vow had been "earning high marks from government ethics groups," says Kirkpatrick". And Derek Kravitz of the Washington Post has concerns about Daschle's wife, who is "one of the most influential" lobbyists in the capital. For Michael Tomasky though, it is experience that counts and Daschle has plenty "I think it's inspired," he says. "Very savvy. Bravo".

Meanwhile Politico’s Mike Allen is one of the first with the news that two-term Democratic governor of Arizona Janet Napolitano will take control of the "vast and troubled" homeland security department in a post introduced by George W Bush after the 9/11 attacks.

But choosing a couple of non-Clintonites does not drastically change the way Obama's cabinet is shaping up and if you only had the cabinet picks to go on, says Tom Engelhardt on The Nation, "you might be forgiven for concluding that Hillary had been elected president in 2008". The aids and secretaries picked so far are not the exciting, bold choices that many had hoped for. Engelhardt poses a question: "Among all those experienced folks in the new Democratic Washington, will there be anyone who can truly think outside the box in desperate times?"

"It's like that song title, 'Everything Old Is New Again'," says Jake Cafferty of CNN. While also on Politico, Stephen G Calabresi is cross: "For two years, we have heard nothing from Senator Obama but a mantra about how badly we need change. Now his administration is turning out to be nothing more than 1990s retro. It seems to me Senator Obama's voters have been had."

FIRST POSTED NOVEMBER 20, 2008