London School of Economics is well represented among Obama’s buddies
The dreaming spires of Oxford had better wake up if they want to continue to play in the major leagues of American government, as long was the case courtesy of the Rhodes scholarship and never more so than when Bill Clinton became the first Oxonian president.Of the first 15 cabinet and White House appointments announced by president-elect Barack Obama, none put in time by the banks of the Cherwell, but three earned degrees from the nondescript buildings off the Strand that house the London School of Economics.
The selections of Peter Orszag as budget director and Pete Rouse and Mona Sutphen to the senior White House staff means the LSE only has two less graduates than Harvard in team Obama.
LSE currently has one more than traditional American powerhouse universities Princeton (Michelle Obama’s alma mater); Massachusetts Institute of Technology; and Michigan Law School. Mighty Yale can boast only one graduate, Gregory Craig, the next presidential legal counsel, though Hillary Clinton and James Steinberg will triple the score if they end up at the state department.
Doubtless LSE will lose its standing as more selections are made, but its early emergence illustrates a broader point about the new regime’s composition. Mr Obama has his own collection of close friends and advisers on whom he has always relied.
This is true of all presidents to a degree. Ronald Reagan brought in his West Coast buddies, George W. Bush his tight Texas mafia, Jimmy Carter his good ol’ southern boys and Bill Clinton his Little Rock crew from Arkansas. Some thrive in Washington; some don’t.
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The unanswerable question is whether they will conquer Washington, as the Reagan team mostly did, or be eaten alive by it, the fate of the Carter crew. Of course, there are plenty of other American LSE graduates on hand to help.
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