The Return of the Realists?

Steve Clemons exults in a new policy director for Condi. Money quote:

The constructive players in the administration, at this point, include people like Chief of Staff Joshua Bolten (he has made HUGE difference in general change of course of this administration away from Cheneyesque pugnaciousness), Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, Deputy Secretary John Negroponte (yes - for all the critics who have a problem with Negroponte, you need to take another look - he is winning bureaucratic battles for Condi now against Cheney's team), Under Secretary of State R. Nicholas Burns (whose success at 'lots' of new international deal-making that was preempted in the last few years make him a great potential successor to Bob Barker on The Price is Right), Legal Adviser John Bellinger, and now David Gordon succeeding Stanford's Stephen Krasner in George Kennan's famous job.

Others on the side of light include Secretary of Defense Bob Gates who is strongly backing the Diplomatic Team (and by reports I've received is in the clear lead - though not demanding credit - in laying out a new strategic road map for American interests in the Middle East). Gordon England, Deputy Secretary of Defense, is running DoD far more competently than Paul Wolfowitz did. Mike McConnell at the Directorate of National Intelligence and Michael Hayden have completely turned around a convulsing, dysfunctional intelligence establishment that was being ravaged and distorted by Rumsfeld and Stephen Cambone into something far more ordered and constructively supportive of the current foreign policy and national security missions.

Make no mistake about my enthusiasm for the rising A Team here.