Kompressor

I concur Hedons, my hope meter has become a halfstock. Although these guys don't guarantee 'change,' at the very least they are qualified. Can't expect effective change if you don't know how things work to begin with.

Robert Gates should be announced on Monday.

__________________
Think like a man of action, act like a man of thought. -H. Bergson

Hedons

I agree with what you're saying in that I wouldn't want inexperienced people in there. But the recycling of Hillary Clinton is just a blatent indicator to expect nothing less than the status quo.

But we speak of experience... Is foreign policy experience important for someone aspiring to be the Secretary of State?

-Hedons

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Kompressor

That's all Sec of State is really, Domestic shit is taken care of mostly by the other departments.

It's not the recycling of Hillary as it is Bill, which isn't exactly a bad thing, but Obama still holds the reigns. We won't really know until January though.

__________________
Think like a man of action, act like a man of thought. -H. Bergson

Hedons

Yes, of course it's important.

So here is Hillary, whose foreign policy experience was ridiculed by Obama during the campaign. "What exactly is this foreign policy experience?" Obama said mockingly of the New York senator. "Was she negotiating treaties? Was she handling crises? The answer is no."

Should we shrug it off as campaign rhetoric?

-Hedons

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Kompressor

Well, obviously she wasn't under sniperfire, but she wasn't just drinking tea either.

She had Law experience before coming to the white house as first lady, and even being a crony senator gives a wealth of privy information. She's definitely not my first choice, given that she could 'obliterate iran,' but not the worst of the list either. Just think if Kerry got it.

__________________
Think like a man of action, act like a man of thought. -H. Bergson

Hedons

So was Obama bashing her for her foreign policy because he actually felt and believed it to be true, or was he bashing her because that's just one of the things he felt he should say to help get himself elected president?

For the position though, I actually don't question Hillary Clinton's competency or qualifications, her ability to smile politely and kiss ass at state dinners, nor her ability to be a tough old leathery cunt when she needs to be. She is a skilled politician.

-Hedons

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Kompressor

The only real differences between Hillary and Barack's primary platforms were healthcare and foreign policy, so I'd go with the latter of your choice. They are still both democrats afterall. Even if the situation was reversed, I doubt we'd see much difference.

__________________
Think like a man of action, act like a man of thought. -H. Bergson

stoneric

Yeah, Obama is surrounding himself with experienced war mongers. Wonderful.

Kompressor

Robert Gates is officially continuing, Jim Jones [kool-aid anyone?] as National Security Advisor, and Susan Rice as our UN Ambassador.

DEFENSE SECRETARY
Defense Secretary Robert Gates.
Former Navy Secretary Richard Danzig.
Sen. Chuck Hagel, R-Neb., critic of Iraq war, retiring from Senate.
Sen. Jack Reed, D-R.I., member of Senate Armed Services Committee.

TREASURY SECRETARY
Timothy Geithner, president of Federal Reserve Bank of New York.
Former Federal Reserve Chairman Paul Volcker.
Lawrence Summers, former treasury secretary and one-time Harvard University president.

SECRETARY OF STATE
Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, D-NY, former first lady and onetime rival of Obama's for the Democratic presidential nomination.
Gov. Bill Richardson, D-N.M., former U.N. ambassador and energy secretary.
Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass., 2004 presidential nominee.
Sen. Chuck Hagel, R-Neb., critic of Iraq war, retiring from Senate.
Richard Holbrooke, former U.S. ambassador to the United Nations.

ATTORNEY GENERAL
Eric Holder, former deputy attorney general.

HEALTH AND HUMAN SERVICES SECRETARY
Former Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle, D-S.D.

HOMELAND SECURITY SECRETARY
Arizona Gov. Janet Napolitano.
Tim Roemer, former Indiana congressman and member of the 9/11 commission.
Ray Kelly, New York police commissioner.
Former Navy Secretary Richard Danzig.
Richard Clarke, a counterterrorism official in Republican and Democratic administrations.
James Lee Witt, former FEMA director.
Los Angeles Police Chief Bill Bratton.
Former New Jersey Gov. Tom Kean, chairman of 9/11 commission.
Rep. Jane Harman, D-Calif., chairwoman of Homeland Security intelligence subcommittee.

CIA DIRECTOR
John Brennan, former director of the National Counterterrorism Center

NATIONAL INTELLIGENCE DIRECTOR
Tim Roemer, former Indiana congressman and member of the 9/11 commission.
Rep. Jane Harman, D-Calif., chairwoman of Homeland Security intelligence subcommittee.
Jami Miscik, former head of CIA's analytical operations.

NATIONAL SECURITY ADVISER
James B. Steinberg, former deputy national security adviser.
Susan Rice, former assistant secretary of state for African affairs.
Jim Jones, Retired Marine General

ENERGY SECRETARY
Dan Reicher, director of climate change and energy initiatives at Google, former assistant energy secretary in charge of efficiency and renewable energy programs in the Clinton administration.
Former Rep. Philip Sharp, D-Ind., president of Resources for the Future think tank.
Kansas Gov. Kathleen Sebelius.
Steven Chu, a physicist who runs the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory

INTERIOR SECRETARY
Former Oregon Gov. John Kitzhaber.
Former Alaska Gov. Tony Knowles.
Sen. Ken Salazar, D-Colo., former executive director of Colorado Natural Resources Department.

EPA ADMINISTRATOR
Lisa P. Jackson, commissioner of New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection.
Mary Nichols, head of California Air Resources Board.
Kathleen McGinty, former secretary of Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection.


HOUSING AND URBAN DEVELOPMENT SECRETARY
Rep. James Clyburn, D-S.C.

LABOR SECRETARY
Ed McElroy, former president of the American Federation of Teachers
Former Rep. Dick Gephardt of Missouri
Linda Chavez-Thompson, former AFL-CIO vice president
Rep. George Miller, D-Calif., chairman of House Education and Labor Committee.
Former Rep. David Bonior, member of Obama's Transition Economic Advisory Board.
Andy Stern, president of Service Employees International Union.
Maria Echaveste, former Clinton White House adviser.

COMMERCE SECRETARY
Penny Pritzker, business executive, Obama fundraiser.
Laura D'Andrea Tyson, former chair of White House Council of Economic Advisers under President Clinton.
Bill Richardson, Gov. of New Mexico

OFFICE OF MANAGEMENT AND BUDGET DIRECTOR
Peter Orszag, director of Congressional Budget Office.

EDUCATION SECRETARY
Colin Powell, former secretary of state, former chairman of Joint Chiefs of Staff.
Former North Carolina Gov. Jim Hunt.
Arizona Gov. Janet Napolitano.
Kansas Gov. Kathleen Sebelius.
New York schools chief Joel Klein.
Arne Duncan, chief executive officer of Chicago public schools.
Inez Tenenbaum, former South Carolina schools superintendent.
Linda Darling-Hammond, education professor at Stanford University.
Jon Schnur, CEO and co-founder New Leaders for new Schools.
House education committee Chairman George Miller of California.

TRANSPORTATION SECRETARY
Jane Garvey, former head of Federal Aviation Administration.
Rep. James Oberstar, D-Minn., chairman of House Transportation Committee.
Mortimer Downey, former deputy transportation secretary.
Rep. Peter DeFazio, D-Ore., member of the House Transportation Committee.

AGRICULTURE SECRETARY
Former Iowa Gov. Tom Vilsack.
Tom Buis, president of National Farmers Union.
Former Rep. Charles Stenholm, D-Texas.

__________________
Think like a man of action, act like a man of thought. -H. Bergson

stoneric

Keeping gates and appointing clinton says everything about the change we will be seeing in our foreign policy. Zilch.

verklingen

^ it's certainly not too promising but i like to say every storm is perfect.

__________________

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Ego Tripping

If Obama is genuine and has the level of integrity that people feel he does, then I assume he's playing the game at this point. He has to work within the box in which he placed himself.

Ultimately, it will be about policy and how he handles the skills of the people he's assigning to the cabinets, not just the people themselves.

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stoneric

He won. He doesn't have to play games. gates should have been gone on day 1.

Ego Tripping

The system is rotted to the core. I don't think one guy can make the sweeping change that would uproot the people who are responsible in the first place. They obviously have more backing than we are aware of. There are very powerful parties behind all these people. I feel it's baby steps at this point.

Of course, he still might be all talk, but god damn, that's a lot of people to get motivated just to let them all down by continuing the same exact policies. I'm going to have to assume that he's being told what to do as much as he's making his own decisions. I'm going to remain neutral until he actually is president and starts to execute his plans. They will speak more about 'change' than the people he's appointing. Until then, it's speculation as always.

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stoneric

But getting rid of gates would have been easy. It would be expected of the purported anti-war candidate of the opposition (i use that term lightly) party.

Ego Tripping

Gates has been decently anti-war in the respect that he still is against using force against Iran and has repeatedly mentioned how horribly managed this 'war' was. Whether we feel the 'war on terror' and Iraq was a farce or not, we're still there and it's still happening. Obama cannot end something like the 'war on terror' or the Iraq war singlehandedly when plenty of people feel it's a legitimate war as well as 9/11 being a legitimate attack. Unfortunately, we're a minority in the way America thinks as a whole. I think Obama is trying to change things but not in such a way that it causes more damage than good. Easy does it at this time, especially adding in the economic variables into the mix.

I would have loved for Ron Paul to be my President because I feel he really represented the change I want to see...but it would be such dramatic and sudden change, it would leave more destruction than peace in it's wake. I find Obama's change to be more suitable to the populace the change is being taken place. I never doubted he would have people like Gates and Clinton by his side during his administration. What's positive is that he's keeping them in places where they are advisers, not the decision makers.

He's either going to take their advice and still enact the policies he beefed up in the campaign, or he'll be the biggest letdown in American Politics. From what I saw from the election day celebration in Grants Park, it's not the latter, and if it is, this guy is the craziest and ballsy SOB I've ever seen...but I've been wrong before, so we'll see.

I guess all I am saying is, have some faith that he could be a solid President with real integrity. You don't have to, but if not, then propose a way we can make it better ourselves.

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Kompressor

Obama has openly stated in his primary debates that he was hoping Hillary would be one of his advisers. At the time it was a quip to show his balls against her, but still a nice little foreshadow for those of us who remember.



Becerra a top candidate for Obama trade chief

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - California congressman Xavier Becerra has emerged as a leading candidate to be the chief U.S. trade negotiator for President-elect Barack Obama, a Democratic official and lobbyists said on Wednesday.

Becerra, who would be the first Hispanic in the job, would take over as World Trade Organization members anxiously watch the incoming Obama administration for signs of its commitment to revive struggling global trade talks launched in 2001.

Becerra now serves on the House of Representatives Ways and Means Committee, which has jurisdiction over trade.

Industry sources also said former senior Treasury official Gary Gensler was a possible candidate to lead the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.

A Democratic official said Obama was strongly considering Becerra for U.S. trade representative but had not made a final decision. Business lobbyists said they had heard from sources on Capitol Hill that Becerra was a top candidate.

Becerra, 50, would be a surprise choice after early speculation focused on Dan Tarullo and Lael Brainard, who both worked in the White House on international economic issues under President Bill Clinton.

But Becerra's 16 years of experience in Congress could help him repair some of the divisions over trade during the eight years of President George W. Bush.

A friend of U.S. labor groups, Becerra voted against the U.S.-Central American Free Trade Agreement (CAFTA) in 2005.

CAFTA was one of the most bitter trade battles of the Bush administration, with the agreement initially clearing the House by only one vote.

Becerra also voted, along with most Democrats, earlier this year to block consideration of a free trade agreement with Colombia when Bush tried to force a vote.

But Becerra has supported other trade deals, including one Congress approved last year with Peru. He also voted in 1993, his first year in Congress, for the North American Free Trade Agreement that Obama has said he intends to reopen with Canada and Mexico to add stronger labor and environmental provisions.

AWAITING CONFIRMATION

Congressional Quarterly's online publication reported on Tuesday that Becerra had been offered the trade post. Neither his office nor the Obama transition team would confirm that.

"Congressman Becerra is looking forward to serving in his newly elected post as House Democratic vice chair and is focusing his energy and efforts in the work that lies ahead for him in the 111th Congress," a spokeswoman for Becerra said.

U.S. business and labor leaders said they could work with Becerra if he is tapped for the job.

"Looking at his voting record, he's certainly not a protectionist and he's certainly not a total free trader," said Frank Vargo, vice president for international economic affairs at the National Association of Manufacturers.

"If he were selected, I would not see it as a sign the administration is throwing in the towel on trade. I believe he would have an open mind and be pragmatic."

Vargo said he was convinced Obama and manufacturers share the same goal of expanding trade, despite some differences.

Thea Lee, policy director for the AFL-CIO labor federation, said Becerra would be an "excellent choice."

"We haven't agreed with him on every single trade issue but he's always been open and honest with us and willing to talk," Lee said.

Beyond supporting NAFTA, Becerra disappointed labor groups when he voted in 2000 in favor of establishing permanent normal trade relations with China, Lee said.

For the top job at the Securities and Exchange Commission, Gensler is a contender because he reviews the operations of the financial watchdog as part of Obama's transition team and was under secretary for domestic finance in the Treasury during the tenure of former Treasury Secretary Lawrence Summers.

Summers has been tapped by Obama as the director of the White House National Economic Council.

Gensler is a former partner at Goldman Sachs and worked as a top adviser to Maryland Sen. Paul Sarbanes, one of the authors of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act that toughened standards on corporations in response to major accounting and business scandals of the early 2000s.

__________________
Think like a man of action, act like a man of thought. -H. Bergson

Kompressor

Nobel Prize Winner Steven Chu selected as Energy Secretary and Lisa Jackson as EPA Administrator.

Officials say Obama chooses energy, EPA posts

WASHINGTON (AP) — President-elect Barack Obama intends to round out his environmental and natural resources team with a Nobel Prize-winning physicist and three former Environmental Protection Agency officials from the Clinton administration.

The president-elect has selected Steven Chu for energy secretary, Lisa Jackson for EPA administrator, Carol Browner as his energy "czar" and Nancy Sutley to lead the White House Council on Environmental Quality, Democratic officials said Wednesday.

Still unclear is whom Obama will tap for interior secretary.

Officials close to the transition said support for John Berry, the director of the National Zoo and a former assistant secretary at the Interior Department, was growing. But these officials also said Arizona Rep. Raul Grijalva and California Rep. Mike Thompson were still in the running.

The Democratic officials who disclosed the selections spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to reveal names that have not been made public. Obama is expected to make the announcements in the coming weeks.

Six weeks before his Jan. 20 inauguration and little more than a month since his election, Obama has chosen much of his Cabinet and top White House staff. He has only a few key posts left to fill: national intelligence director, the secretaries of housing, labor, education, transportation and agriculture and U.S. trade representative.

Obama will hold a news conference on Thursday in Chicago to name former Senate Democratic leader Tom Daschle as his secretary of health and human services. That choice has been known for some time.

As for his environment and natural resources team:

_ Chu was one of three scientists who shared the Nobel Prize for physics in 1997 for work in cooling and trapping atoms with laser light. He's a professor of physics and molecular and cell biology at the University of California, Berkeley, and has been the director of the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory since 2004, where he has pushed for research into alternative energy as a way to combat global warming.

It is the oldest of the Energy Department's national laboratories, doing only unclassified work, and in recent years under Chu has been at the center of research into biofuels and solar technologies.

_ Jackson, who will be the first black person to lead the EPA, is a former New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection commissioner who worked at the federal agency for 16 years, including under Browner when she was Clinton's EPA chief. Jackson is a co-chairman of Obama's EPA transition team, and currently serves as chief of staff to New Jersey Gov. Jon S. Corzine.

A New Orleans native, she grew up in the Lower Ninth Ward, the area stricken by Hurricane Katrina. She holds chemical engineering degrees from Tulane University and Princeton University.

_ Browner, who served as EPA chief for eight years under Clinton, will become Obama's go-to person in the White House overseeing energy issues, an area expected to include the environment and climate matters.

Now chair of the National Audubon Society and on the boards of several other environmental groups, Browner has been leading the Obama transition's working group on energy and environment.

_ Sutley, the deputy mayor for energy and environment in Los Angeles and the mayor's representative on the Board of Directors for the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California, is the first prominent member of the gay and lesbian community to earn a senior role in Obama's new administration.

She was an EPA official during the Clinton administration, including being a special assistant to the EPA administrator in Washington. She also previously served on the California State Water Resources Control Board and was an energy adviser to former Gov. Gray Davis.

__________________
Think like a man of action, act like a man of thought. -H. Bergson

Hostile

I still don't see how people are maintaining their faith in him. Maybe they're all still drunk from the victory parties? Anyway, it ain't gonna last.

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It's getting better. It's getting better all the time.
- Richard Starkey

Kompressor

Arne Duncan for Education Secretary and Ken Salazar for Secretary of the Interior.

Obama Picks Chicago's Schools Chief For Cabinet

President-elect Barack Obama nominated Chicago schools executive Arne Duncan as his education secretary this morning and is expected to tap Sen. Ken Salazar (D-Colo.) later this week to serve as secretary of the interior, all but finalizing his selections for major Cabinet posts.

Appearing with Duncan at Dodge Renaissance Academy, a Chicago elementary school that the two visited together in 2005, Obama said improving the nation's schools was a critical part of remaining competitive in the global economy of the 21st century.

"If we want to out-compete the world tomorrow, then we're going to have to out-educate the world today," Obama said. "Yet, when our high school dropout rate is one of the highest in the industrialized world, when a third of all fourth graders can't do basic math, when more and more Americans are getting priced out of attending college -- we are falling far short of that goal . . . We cannot continue on like this. It is morally unacceptable for our children -- and economically untenable for America."

Duncan, 44, has been chief executive of the Chicago public schools since 2001, steering the nation's third-largest school district, which has more than 400,000 students. Duncan was raised in Chicago's Hyde Park neighborhood, not far from Obama's home, and is a longtime friend and basketball partner of the president-elect. He graduated from Harvard University, where he was co-captain of the basketball team, and he played professional basketball in Australia from 1987 to 1991. He returned to Chicago to direct the Ariel Education Initiative, which creates educational opportunities for youths on the South Side, and joined the city's public school system in 1998 as deputy chief of staff.
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Obama praised Duncan's willingness to embrace wide-ranging types of education reform -- from shutting down failing schools to encouraging public charter schools to supporting master teacher certification to paying educators for improved school performance.

"When faced with tough decisions, Arne doesn't blink," Obama said. "He's not beholden to any one ideology -- and he doesn't hesitate for one minute to do what needs to be done . . .So when Arne speaks to educators across America, it won't be from up in some ivory tower, but from the lessons he's learned during his years changing our schools from the bottom up."

Duncan called education "the civil rights issue of this generation."

"Our children have just one chance to get a quality education," he said. "And they need and deserve to get the absolute best."

Education Secretary Margaret Spellings, who visited a Chicago elementary school last week to highlight Duncan's pay-for-performance program, showered praise on the executive in an interview with The Washington Post last week. Spellings called him "a really good school leader."

"I do think he's a reform-oriented school leader who has been a supporter of No Child Left Behind and accountability concepts and teacher quality," she said. "He's a kindred spirit."

Dodge Renaissance Academy was a failing school on Chicago's West Side that the city shuttered in 2002. Duncan reopened the school as an academy where candidates for advanced degrees in education work in the classrooms. Duncan and Obama visited the school three years ago and hailed it as a successful model for teacher residency programs that could be replicated in the toughest schools nationwide.

Although Obama has not detailed how he will try to fix the nation's struggling schools, he has promised to recruit an "army of new teachers," create better tests and give public schools more funding. The president-elect has not taken sides in a debate between reform advocates and powerful teachers unions, and choosing Duncan seems to be a consensus move likely to appeal to both.

Duncan is embraced by the teachers unions, who have been concerned about high-stakes testing and worry about merit pay being tied to test scores, as well as reformers, who favor charter schools and tougher standards.

Duncan partnered with the Chicago Teachers Union to develop a performance-pay plan for the city's teachers, while also supporting charter schools. Democrats for Education Reform wrote in a policy paper that Duncan "has credibility with various factions in the education policy debate and would allow President Obama to avoid publicly choosing sides in that debate."

The selection of Salazar is expected to be popular among environmental advocates but, as with Obama's earlier Cabinet choices, would set off a political scramble: Colorado Gov. Bill Ritter (D) would appoint a replacement to complete Salazar's term through 2010, when a potentially tough fight would follow. And the move would put a freshman, Rep. Mark Udall, who won the other Senate seat last month, in position as the state's senior senator. Salazar's brother, John, serves in the House and could be among those considered for the appointment to succeed him in the Senate.

Ken Salazar, who has pitched himself as a moderate throughout his political career, was elected to the Senate in 2004 after serving six years as Colorado's attorney general. His departure for the Cabinet would leave only two Hispanics in the Senate, one of whom, Mel Martinez (R-Fla.), is retiring at the end of the next Congress.
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Yesterday afternoon, Obama formally rolled out the members of his climate change and energy team. Obama, vowing to address global warming and alternative energy sources, named Nobel laureate physicist Steven Chu as his energy secretary, Lisa P. Jackson as administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency, Nancy Sutley as chairman of the Council on Environmental Quality, and Carol M. Browner as assistant to the president for energy and climate change, a new post.

At a news conference in Chicago, Obama said that Chu "values science." Last week, before making the choice, the president-elect met with former vice president Al Gore to discuss climate change, part of a return-to-science approach that Obama promised during the campaign.

Appearing in Chicago yesterday, Obama described his team as uniquely qualified to confront the challenges of global warming. He said past promises to seek renewable energy sources, long unfulfilled, must be met.

"This time has to be different. This time we cannot fail, nor can we be lulled into complacency just because the price at the pump has gone down, for now, from $4 per gallon," Obama said, acknowledging one of the greatest challenges -- falling gasoline prices -- to his hope of giving renewable energy a sense of urgency. He may also, his aides admit, have difficulty overhauling the nation's approach to energy in the midst of an economic crisis that has frozen new investments and wiped out funding for research and development.

But Obama promised a "new energy economy," starting with his economic recovery program, which he said would not only protect the environment but also create jobs, make businesses more efficient and improve national security.

Earlier yesterday, Obama convened his proposed national security team, including James L. Jones as national security adviser, Hillary Rodham Clinton as secretary of state and Janet Napolitano as secretary of homeland security, in Chicago.

__________________
Think like a man of action, act like a man of thought. -H. Bergson