Obama's "Team of Rivals"?

Apparently some people are treating Obama's reported interest in Hillary Clinton as Secretary of State as an act of political genius similar to Lincoln's deft assembly of a "Team of Rivals" to comprise his cabinet. I think this meme gives much too much credit to both Lincoln and Obama.

Lincoln didn't exactly invent the idea of naming strong leaders from a president's own party to cabinet positions. And few if any members of Lincoln's cabinet needed his close supervision to deter them from conspiring to unseat him. Seward was disappointed at losing the nomination in 1860 but had no difficulty accepting Lincoln as his party's leader. Stanton may have been a Lincoln skeptic, but he was wasn't even a candidate in '60, let alone a political force Lincoln needed to worry about. Edward Bates clearly lacked the ambition to intrigue against Lincoln. If memory serves, he could barely be troubled to move to Washington to join the cabinet. In fact, the only cabinet official deserving of a short leash was Salmon Chase, and it's far from clear that Lincoln spared himself any heartache by putting him at Treasury.

As for Obama and Hillary, for reasons discussed in my previous post, appointing her as Secretary of State does virtually nothing to neutralize her as a potential rival. Obama's energies should be focused on performing well as president, not worrying about what Hillary does.