Barack Obama met Wednesday with a new national-security advisory group that includes many of former President Clinton’s top advisers, saying that if he’s elected president he’ll return the nation “to a pragmatic tradition of American foreign policy, which has been so ably advanced by the people in this room.”

With former Secretaries of State Madeleine Albright and Warren Christopher and former Defense Secretary William Perry signing on to a panel already heavy with former Clinton administration officials, Obama continued to consolidate the support of Clinton loyalists after his defeat of Sen. Hillary Clinton for the Democratic nomination.

Their willingness to advise Obama in his general election campaign gives him a team with decades of collective expertise and one that advised the last Democratic president during a decade of peace and prosperity.

Now with these advisers in place an argument against change can be made.  In the other hand, there is plenty of experience there.  If he, Obama, wants to win the election he cannot have it both ways.