A Stunningly Great Move For Veterans

Battlefield expertise does not translate neatly into bureaucratic expertise. But on its face Barack Obama's selection of retired Army General Erik Shinseki to head the troubled Veterans Affairs Department, is bloody brilliant and yet another break with how the Bush administration handled national security-related issues.

Shinseki, testifying before Congress a month before the U.S. invaded Iraq, infuriated Defense Secretary Rumsfeld when he presciently testified that several hundred thousand troops would be needed to stablize the country and anticipated that ethnic tensions would create problems of their own.