WASHINGTON, Jan. 19 (UPI) -- U.S. President-elect Barack Obama has met with rival John McCain, seeking his input on national security nominees and the war in Iraq, aides to both men say.
During the last three months, Obama has consulted with Republican presidential nominee McCain on several security picks -- going so far as to address concerns McCain raised about one, then supplying McCain with the nominee's answer, The New York Times reported.
McCain, guest of honor at Monday's black-tie dinner celebrating Obama's inauguration, has told people many of Obama's appointments "he would have made himself," said Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., and a close friend to McCain.
For Obama, cooperation with the man he defeated in November also could provide a powerful ally in the U.S. Senate, where McCain has parlayed his national popularity into a role as a deal-maker during the last eight years, the Times said. But Obama's reaching out to McCain ventures into uncharted territory, one political observer said.
"I don't think there is a precedent for this," Fred Greenstein, emeritus professor of politics at Princeton, told the Times. "Sometimes there is bad blood, sometimes there is so-so blood, but rarely is there good blood."
