http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/19/opinion/19friedman.html

In the above article columnist Thomas Friedman concludes questioning Hillary Clinton's effectiveness as possible Secretary of State w/ the following dismissal:

When it comes to appointing a secretary of state, you do not want a team of rivals.


Of course, Honest Abe Lincoln did exactly that by tabbing NY rival Senator William Seward as his Secretary of State. Reportedly President-elect Obama is intrigued by his historic kinship to fellow Illinoisan Lincoln & read Doris Kearns Goodwin's book "Team Of Rivals" that argues Abe's wisdom in appointing rivals to his Cabinet.

Admittedly, I'm no fan of Doris Kearns Goodwin; she appears on TV too much to take her seriously. My study of Old Abe's Team of Rivals derives mainly from Gore Vidal's historical fiction novel Lincoln which deals extensively w/ the minds of Seward & Salmon P Chase, not to mention Hoosier John Hay who later led the 'splendid little war' of conquest in Cuba under the influence of Teddy Roosevelt & Alfred Thayer Mahan's dominance-of-the-seas beliefs.

Has anybody read Goodwin's book? Right now it would be advantageous to know how she portrayed the pitfalls, if she saw any, in Lincoln's policy of playing off interests against each other. Gore Vidal, for his part, seemed to view the Team of Rivals concept as a masterstroke of Lincoln's historic Presidency. He surely views Obama similarly today.

I have not read the book but I am interested in reading it.
The premise of the book may be something like the old saying. Keep your friends close and your enemies closer.

Will Hillary want to give up her independence is the question. If she stays in the senate and Obama turns out to be a bad or weak President, then she would be in a position to challenge him. If she is part of his administration, she wouldn't be in a good position to challenge him.

It's not as contradictory as you think there JB, while on first blush it does seem that way.

If Vidal had done some of the same research as Kearns-Goodwin (e.g., reading other books, letters, diaries, records, et. al) he could have gotten a fairly good grasp of their feelings but wrote it in a way more accessible to people than a straight history book.

That being said, I wouldn't base my understanding wholly based on the book or a movie, but it's possible it's not all that far off.

Li'l jb's still too wet behind the ears to appreciate the truths in fiction. Vidal's Lincoln is the last in a trilogy of American political novels. The first, Burr, raises the fascinating hypothesis that Martin Van Buren may've been Aaron Burr's bastard son, elected President the year of Burr's death. Van Buren was the first New Yorker (Chase Manhattan Bank founder Burr's homestate & onetime political base) to serve as President, rising to power thru Andrew Jackson's revival of the Southern agrarian common man's alliance w/ New York pols. Jackson, of course, plotted w/ Burr early on to steal Texas from Mexico, a goal that reached fruition during Jackson's last year as President.

After Lincoln, Vidal's 1876 follows the disputed election that resulted in Rutherford B Hayes' dealmaking w/ another New Yorker, Samuel B Tilden, to end Reconstruction in exchange for the White House. For jb399's benefit, these novels are cheap n' easy ways to put oneself in the tenor of the times & reflect on the ambitions of Americans like Chase & Seward (whom Sarah Palin can thank or damn for Alaska's belonging to our Union) versus the obligations & responsibilities that faced great men like Lincoln (&, we hope, Obama in relation to the ever-ambitious Clintons).

Back to topic, I agree w/ Washington native that Hillary's overweening personal goals will decide whether she becomes our Secretary of State. For some reason Barack Obama seems deeply afraid of ticking her off. Must be the national gals' vote in 2012, looking ahead (needlessly) to Palin whose unabashed ambition exceeds even Mrs Clinton's.

Historical fiction is NOT anyway to learn about or research a subject. True, it may be based in historical truth. However, this no other knowledge on the subject, how are you supposed to separate fact from fiction? Fiction writers are going to take liberates. History is sometimes dry and dry topics do not sell books well. A historical fiction writer is going to add subjects to spice up the story.

Sure, a historical fiction is a great why to stir up interests in a certain topic. However, you should never use a piece of historical fiction to "study" anything. Especially when there are Pulitzer Prize biographers out there with works on the subject.

Agreed

Fair enough. Our friend jb399's made plain his preference for Pulitzer-pulling pop-historian Doris Kearns Goodwin's approach. What did you learn from her Team Of Rivals, li'l jb?

I never said we oughtn't read Kearns Goodwin; just that I consider her a TV-attention-grabber (& wife of an East Coast prominent pol, natch). Goodwin's 'idea' that Lincoln put together a team of rivals was put forth long ago in Vidal's book. Vidal viewed Honest Abe as inscrutable, unknowable to anyone. He had Hay & Lincoln's other young MidWestern assistant, John Nicolay, nickname Abe "The Ancient" for his depth.