Obama shows ‘audacity of hope’

The president-elect announced on Monday the appointments to his economic team at a press conference in Chicago, and the Dow industrials shot up by 398 points in response. “We cannot hesitate and we cannot delay,” he assured the nation in a sense of urgency, referring to the financial crisis that is threatening to cripple not only Wall Street but also Main Street — and stock markets all over the world.

He is audacious in recruiting strong personalities to serve in the new administration that is beginning to take shape. He is showing that he is not afraid of picking people who are smarter and tougher than himself. He seems to have a single aim: getting the best available talent to work with him for the country in trouble.

As the economy has eclipsed all else for the new government, Obama tapped the 47-year-old Tim Geithner, president of the Federal Reserve Bank in New York, as his treasury secretary. Former Harvard President Lawrence Summers, an economist who served as Bill Clinton’s treasury secretary, was named director of the National Economic Council at the White House. The appointments have won praise even from critics of the Republican Party as those “bright economic minds” in Obama’s words possess both the experience and expertise needed to tackle the country’s No.1 issue from Day One.

Exuding confidence and gravitas, Obama cautioned the nation, however, that the economy is “likely to get worse before it gets better,” because his new brain trust is inheriting a “crisis of historic proportions.”

This kind of cautiousness, plus the widely anticipated announcement of Sen. Hillary Clinton as secretary of state and other key members of the new government, including retaining Robert Gates as defense secretary, gives the nation hope for national revival after eight years of misrule by George W. Bush.

The hope is not misplaced judging from the fact that Obama has demonstrated a potential to become a great American president, like Jack F. Kennedy or Franklin D. Roosevelt, even Abraham Lincoln. For one thing, he loathes divisive partisan politics. For another, he is able to make friends with rivals and turn them into allies. He appoints gifted and talented people to key government posts, not his friends and cronies.

It looks as if the 47-year-old Obama, the first African-American to become U.S. president, knew the ancient Chinese maxim that “national revival depends on talented people.” Putting the right people in the right posts should be the 101 of good governance and leadership. Obama is doing just that.

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