Good News at the ONDCP

Harold Pollack gives us the good news about the new team at the Office of National Drug Control Policy (“drug czar”):

Things are looking up, though. The new Drug Czar, Gil Kerlikowski combines the credibility of a big-city police chief with a solid reputation for pragmatic and decent law enforcement practices. More important are those being brought in to back him up, particularly on clinical and scientific matters beyond the Chief’s personal experience.

Sources report that Tom McClellan will be Kerlikowski’s deputy director, and second-in-command. McLellan’s appointment is part of a weird pattern of hires made by the Obama administration: Appoint people who actually know what they are talking about rather than ideologues or the President’s smiling and funny roommate from boarding school.

The more you think not just about the administration’s big policy objectives on health care and energy, but also the large number of good people already in the place throughout the administration poised to do excellent work on dozens of second- and third-tier issues, the more frustrating it becomes to realize how it could all easily be brought down by poor handling of the banking crisis.