The list of "top thinkers" is sillier than the lists of cabinet candidates that emerged. If those are at the top, then let's all hang it up and contract out everything to the UK or France or Croatia.

Dan,
Great list but Amy Zegart for intel? Who once wrote, "The original CIA was never supposed to engage in spying." Whose book "Flawed by Design," lives up to its title... Surely you can't be serious? Dan, Dan, Dan...

State: John Bolton
Education: Thomas Sowell
Treasury: Thomas W. Hazlett
Commerce: T. J. Rodgers
OMB Director: Richard Armey
Atty General: John Murtagh
Press Secretary: Virginia Postrel
UN Ambassador: Bill Whittle

Maybe Joe the Plumber could be one of Rodgers' deputies :-)

Chasseur:
Don't forget Francis Fukuyama. He was one of the original PNAC'ers.

Alan K. Henderson:
Are you serious? Wing-nuts?

I see this is now making the rounds on the Interwebs. I covered this earlier in a post on my blog. Several names were mentioned by more than one contributor (e.g. Hagel, Steinberg) but Gates enjoyed the most frequency.

As a Texas native and a UT fan, I have little nice to say about College Station. But I'm nearly 100% sure that running A&M beats running the Pentagon any day. Given the clock Gates reportedly keeps on him, he presumably agrees.

secdef: eric shinseki

gates is a cold warrior, his experience has little to do with modern military challenges... shinseki was in charge of future combat systems and his views on Iraq proved correct

Joe Biden thinks Barack will need all the help he can get:

"Mark my words," the Democratic vice presidential nominee warned at the second of his two Seattle fundraisers Sunday. "It will not be six months before the world tests Barack Obama like they did John Kennedy. The world is looking. We're about to elect a brilliant 47-year-old senator president of the United States of America. Remember I said it standing here if you don't remember anything else I said. Watch, we're gonna have an international crisis, a generated crisis, to test the mettle of this guy."

"I can give you at least four or five scenarios from where it might originate," Biden said to Emerald City supporters, mentioning the Middle East and Russia as possibilities. "And he's gonna need help. And the kind of help he's gonna need is, he's gonna need you - not financially to help him - we're gonna need you to use your influence, your influence within the community, to stand with him. Because it's not gonna be apparent initially, it's not gonna be apparent that we're right."

bemused observer,
That was Joe Biden basically telling people to get ready for Obama accepting a nuclear armed Iran. If as anticipated, Isreal tries to attack Iran's facilities, expect Obama to condemn Israel's actions in public.

But i wonder what sort of "help" people are going to be giving - assuming that they are not worried about keeping their homes/ savings etc...wasnt Obama supposed to be doing the "helping". :-)

Spread the jokes around people ! Barack needs you to get in Ahmedinejad's face :-)

I don't understand the reasoning behind Francis Fukuyama's place on Dan's list. What is he thinking?

This list of the "world's top thinkers" includes several people who clearly have no understanding of how American government works (there is, for example, one nomination for a job that does not exist), and several others who have no understanding of how American politics works (even the left-leaning people on this list all include at least one Republican in their picks. Vanden Heuvel has two). There are also a number of "name" picks, of people who are well past the age when they could or would want to run a Cabinet department. There is even one nomination of a dead guy. Grover Norquist nominated his brother for a job, which somehow does not surprise me.

As for Gates, there is no such thing as an indispensable man, and he has made no secret of his wish to retire. It would probably be worthwhile for the new President to explore asking him to stay on until a successor is confirmed, given the two wars underway at the moment and the fact that many of Gates' subordinates will be leaving with the change of administrations. But a new Democratic President will want the largest government department headed by a Democrat.

A potentially scary Obama Cabinet:

John Kerry - Secretary of State
Chuck Hagel - DND
Richard Clarke - Homeland Security
Susan Rice - NSA
Eric Holder - Attorney General
Chris Matthews - Press Secretary
Barney Frank - Treasury
Chris Dodd - HUD

I'm surprised not one of the 10 thinkers named petraeus

My pick for Obama's team

Sec of State - David Petraeus
Defense - Robert Gates
Treasury - Warren Buffett
Commerce - Bob Zoellick
Energy - T Boone Pickens
Intelligence - Jane Harman
UN Ambassador - Fareed Zakaria

[...] Dan Drezner, I find that Foreign Policy is seeking names for a Dream Team on foreign and economic policy. This [...]

i hope obama expands his choices other than his favorite republicans, hagel and lugar.

My pick for Obama’s team

Sec of State - David Petraeus
Defense - Robert Gates
Treasury - Warren Buffett
Commerce - Bob Zoellick
Energy - T Boone Pickens
Intelligence - Jane Harman
UN Ambassador - Fareed Zakaria

Are you serious? Petraeus has shown to be very partisan(Remeber his Hugh Hewitt interview?). Buffett isn't going to move to D.C. from Omaha. John Lennon and Jimi Hendrix would rise from the dead before Buffett accepted the job. Besides, it would take him away from running Berkshire Hathaway. T. Boone Pickens? One of the funders of the Swift Boaters? A die-hard Republican? Harman and Zakaria? They both supported the Iraq clusterf--k.

A potentially scary Obama Cabinet:

John Kerry - Secretary of State
Chuck Hagel - DND
Richard Clarke - Homeland Security
Susan Rice - NSA
Eric Holder - Attorney General
Chris Matthews - Press Secretary
Barney Frank - Treasury
Chris Dodd - HUD

Kerry isn't going to replace Condi. Hagel? Ugh!! Tweety isn't going to give up his comfy gig at CNBC. Besides, he voted for Bush twice(He's admitted on air to it). Why would Frank and Dodd move out of the House and Senate respectively?

"top thinkers" ..hmmm. Politicians don't think, let alone "think top". Your prime example Biden ...four letter word B -- I -- D -- E -- N (4 letter word exactly!)

Here is my list anyway:

UN Ambassador - Gov. Sarah Palin ...
Secretary of Sate _ Sen. Hillary Clinton
Secretary of Treasury _ Larry Kudlow
Secretary of Defense - Gen. Petraeus
National Security Advisor: to Obama himself ..since he is really really top thinker.

Are you serious? Petraeus has shown to be very partisan(Remeber his Hugh Hewitt interview?).

obama hasn't doen squat. like biden said, the guy will be tested. obama will need the the smartest guys he could find, regardless of party affiliation. let's not use the DND and State to fill it with Obama's favorite republicans.

like i said, i'm surprised nobody among the thinkers, including republican dan, has even considered petraeus for any top position.

i guess he will be controversial among the MOVEON crowd.

Why in the world would you pull Petraeus off of CENTCOM to make him Secretary of State? Shaking my head. . .

because he so much better at "winning the peace."

I'm sure Petraeus would do a fine job as Secretary of State, but is it really the best use of his talent? If the choice is between having Petraeus spending his days thinking primarily about Iraq and Afghanistan as CENTCOM commander or having him thinking about every foreign policy issue under the sun as SecState, then I'll take the former in a heartbeat.

Petraeus wouldn't be able to serve as SECDEF, as he'd need 10 years out of active duty to be eligible.

And Palin -- for the UN? Even John McCain isn't that stupid.

A UN Ambassadorship is not the best use of Palin's talents. She is an executive, not a diplomat.

So why did I nominate Whittle? A UN ambassador must have a firm grasp of the interests of free peoples and the ability state them with clarity, thoroughness, forcefulness, and some bit of eloquence. Whittle has these talents - but as a writer; I have never heard him speak. An ambassador has to be able to do these things verbally.

In that case I change my nomination to James Lileks.

Amy Zegart? Please. At least try to come up with someone who could do the job.

Well out of the two candidates, my "dream" cabinet will be commanded by Obama and look something like this:

Sec State: Bill Richardson (Tufts Grad)
Sec def: Colin Powell
Sec Treasury: Warren Buffet
National Security Adviser: Joe Nye
UN Ambassador: definitely not anyone like Bolton... how about Paula Dobriansky
DNI: I don't know... maybe Robert Gates, he seems like he has a good head on his shoulders

how about Samantha Power for the UN Ambassador post?

I'm not sure Power is quite ready to be UN Ambassador. She makes a lot of sense as Director of Policy Planning at State, which is typically a more intellectual, more behind-the-scenes position.

How about Fareed Zakharia for secretary of state? I know that it is non-traditional to put a journalist in a powerful government position, but I think he can make a thoughtful case on behalf of the U.S. to the Muslim world. He certainly knows enough about foreign affairs, and strikes me as a very thoughtful, pragmatic, non-idealogue.
I suppose the main problem would be the title of his book, "A Post-American World." Even if he uses the book to lament the U.S.' waning power and prosperity (while still hoping for success in developing countries), the title alone would drive people away, if they assume that his implication is that American doesn't matter anymore.

Oops, I just realized that someone else mentioned Fareed Zakharia, but as Ambassador to the UN. I suppose I wasn't the first one to think of him.

Oh, I never responded to comment 4.

Could you elaborate on your dissatisfaction with my list?

I did go against the conventional wisdom that says send a professional diplomat, or at least a retired elected official. But I want our UN Ambassador to be more investigative reporter than diplomat. UN diplomacy doesn't get us anything - the General Assembly and the Security Council are just theater. The UN does accomplish financial corruption, and Whittle and Lileks have the journalistic talent to ferret out that kind of stuff. Anyone who can find a generation-old recipe for meat pie with meat crust can find out what peacekeepers are doing in the Congo. :-)

Then again, perhaps what we need in a UN Ambassador is one experienced as a criminal investigator. In that case, I'll go with someone who fits both the CW and my criteria: Rudy Giuliani.