After Zeal

The more you see what's going on in the world, the more the historic fecklessness and incompetence of the past eight years comes into relief. George W. Bush's legacy may not just be the evisceration of American power, but the collapse of the world economy. Which makes the Obama administration a form of political and economic triage. Fred Kaplan:

Looking over the list of top players on President-elect Barack Obama's transition team, one gets the sense that serious people are coming back to power. On the national-security team in particular, they're professional, thoughtful, cognizant of the world's complexities, engaged with cutting-edge ideas but not dogmatic about them. This may not sound exciting, but those who think it doesn't constitute "change" haven't paid enough attention to these last eight years of Jacobin zeal and blundering.