Brain Trust

Great New Republic article, "The Audacity of Data," about Obama's main policy advisors with the crucial judgement:

Despite Obama's reputation for grandiose rhetoric and utopian hope-mongering, the Obamanauts aren't radicals--far from it. They're pragmatists--people who, when an existing paradigm clashes with reality, opt to tweak that paradigm rather than replace it wholesale. As Thaler puts it, "Physics with friction is not as beautiful. But you need it to get rockets off the ground." It might as well be the motto for Obama's entire policy shop.

Good especially for those who harbor some strange fear he is some ideological loose cannon - he's about pragmatic change.