Editorial: Bush team diverse and well-seasoned

The men and women who will form the Bush Administration in Washington shortly attract more than the usual interest. The reason is twofold: President-elect George W. Bush gives every sign of being a "chairman of the board," content to leave executive decisions to his appointees, and the lack of a convincing electoral mandate has created high expectations of a fairly bipartisan cabinet.

Mr Bush is said even to have left much of the cabinet selecting to his deputy, the more experienced Dick Cheney, who took a leading role in the dispute over the Florida ballot and heads the transition team. A column in the Economist wonders whether the Vice-President-elect is about to become a de facto prime minister of the sort who govern in the name of Presidents in both Russia and France.

With the announcement of the last three cabinet posts yesterday, Mr Bush - or Mr Cheney - has failed in his bipartisan hopes. Norman Mineta, named yesterday as Transportation Secretary, will be the solitary Democrat among the 14 cabinet members. Women and ethnic minorities will be better represented, the cabinet containing three women, two blacks, a hispanic and Mr Mineta, who is of Japanese descent.

Few appear to be token appointments. Labour Secretary Linda Chavez, once a Democrat, is a writer and campaigner against discrimination in the workplace. She is also strongly opposed to "affirmative action" - discrimination in favour of women and minorities - believing they do not need it.

Interior Secretary Gale Norton has been state Attorney-General of Colorado. And, of particular interest to New Zealand, Agriculture Secretary Ann Veneman helped to do the farm products deal in the Uruguay Round of trade negotiations when she was in the previous Bush Administration. The overall Trade Representative is one of three quasi-cabinet posts yet to be filled.

Much attention has been given to the two black appointees - Secretary of State Colin Powell and National Security Adviser Condoleeza Rice. But the cabinet will also include for the first time a Cuban-American, Melquiades Martinez, who has been named Secretary of Housing and Urban Development, and an Arab-American, the defeated Washington Senator Spencer Abraham, who will be Energy Secretary.

For all the hyphens, though, it looks to be a cabinet that will be dominated by Mr Cheney, Mr Powell (who will not be general in this position), Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, who goes back with Mr Cheney to the Ford Administration, and the man finance markets will watch most closely, incoming Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill.

Americans are worried their long economic boom is over, and whether it comes to a soft landing or a crash landing might depend on the first moves of the new Government. If Mr Bush is determined to make his promised tax cuts and does not cut spending at the same time, the stimulus could well force Federal Reserve chairman Alan Greenspan to raise interest rates, throwing the American economy and the world's into a dive.

In Mr O'Neill, the Administration will have an industrialist who was a critic of the Reagan theory that tax cuts would generate higher revenue and the Budget would be unharmed. Experience vindicated Mr O'Neill. But as chief executive of Alcoa, he has also opposed Mr Greenspan's interest rate increases at times. But they have worked together in government previously. And it was Mr Greenspan, when a director of Alcoa, who reportedly recruited Mr O'Neill for the company. Wall St, which hardly knows the appointee, might take comfort.

Another important economic position, Director of the Office of Management and Budget, remains to be filled, as does the post of economic adviser on the President's staff. Mr Bush is expected to appoint a former Federal Reserve Board Governor, Lawrence Lindsey, to the White House job.

By completing the cabinet this quickly, Mr Bush - or Mr Cheney - has done exceptionally well. It is not a month since the Supreme Court broke the election deadlock that set back the transition programme by nearly six weeks.

Their failure to attract more Democrats may cause problems when the appointees seek confirmation by a divided Senate. But it looks to be a team of diversity and experience.

Herald Online feature: Election aftermath

Map: final results across the USA

Bush-Cheney transition website

Transcript: The US Supreme Court decision

Transcript: The US Supreme Court oral arguments

Diary of a democracy in trouble

Electoral College