Most good, but two bad choices

Overall, President Obama's selections to fill his cabinet have met with rave reviews, here and elsewhere. He's done a good job.

But we have problems with two of them.

New Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner may be well respected on both sides of the aisle in Congress, but when a man who "forgets" to pay his taxes for four years becomes head of the department that includes the IRS, some red flags have to be raised.

This would seem to fly in the face of Obama's efforts to have an open, transparent government filled with the most honest and ethical men he could find.

Perhaps when it comes to money, honest and ethical are two qualities difficult to find (re: the greed that triggered the financial crisis), but it seems that despite Geithner's financial skills, Obama could have found someone with equal skill who would served, at the least, as a better role model for taxpayers come April 15.

The second concern we have among an otherwise excellent set of choices is that of Leon Panetta to be the next director of the Central Intelligence Agency. We recognize that the agency clearly could use better management, which is Panetta's strong suit. But his experience in intelligence matters is marginal, and it seems to us that this is a job that requires a much more extensive background in the arcane world of the spy and "black" operations. The rest of Obama's national security team are perfect for the positions they've been given, but Panetta seems to be the weakest link at, arguably, the most important of the intelligence-gathering agencies the United States possesses.

Overall, Obama has done a good job building a high-quality team of advisors, but in these two cases we believe he could have done better.

-- Kelly Everitt