The Missing

When you think about the national security working group that Barack Obama announced today, the most noteworthy names may not be the ones left off the list. Consider Richard Holbrooke, U.N. Ambassador at the end of the Clinton administration, "national security Democrat", and top candidate to be Secretary of State in a Kerry administration.

What's more, back in March, Dan Drezner reported that "I have it on good authority that, not only does the former UN ambassador believe that he'll be Secretary of State if either Clinton or Obama wins, he genuinely thinks he'll have a comparable position if McCain wins." He seems like a noteworthy omission from any effort to gather the great and the good of Democratic foreign policy, not that I'll miss him.

From the missed file, amidst this cluster of former senior officials there's no Zbigniew Brzezinski even though, unlike some of these folks, Zbig endorsed Obama in the primary and was even used to lend heft to an early Obama speech. He was never really a member of the team, however, and when became a lightning rod of criticism he was never heard from again. and the pattern seems to be continuing.

UPDATE: Justin Logan reminds us that William Perry, who is on the list, wanted to bomb North Korea in 2006 and John McCain wanted to bomb North Korea in 2003 (and also, I believe, back in 1994).