Former 9/11 Commission chair Lee Hamilton is endorsing Obama today. It's a big pickup for the candidate--not merely because Hamilton's longtime congressional seat is in Indiana, which votes May 6th--but one that should not surprise loyal TNR readers. Noam may have foreseen the announcement in his wonderful explainer on Obama's "people" from last month. Turns out many of them, including foreign policy guru Denis McDonough, speechwriter Ben Rhodes, Dan Shapiro and Dan Restrepo, who advise Obama on the Middle East and Latin America, respectively, are all "Hamiltonians" (some also by way of ardent supporter Tom Daschle).
What does "Hamiltonian" connote? Noam has this to say about the man himself:
All in all, Hamilton is the kind of pragmatic, non-ideological foreign
policy eminence who can flirt with heterodoxy without losing
respectability.
Looks like it. Do read more/again about Obama's policy laboratory in "the Audacity of Data" here.
--Dayo Olopade