ABC reporting that the new team will be unveiled at a press conference in Chicago on Monday:
Pending Senate confirmation, the President-elect's national security team will include: Sen. Hillary Clinton, D-N.Y., who will serve as Secretary of State in his administration; Arizona Gov. Janet Napolitano who will be Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security; attorney Eric Holder, Attorney General; Retired Marine General Jim Jones, National Security Adviser; retired Adm. Dennis Blair, Director of National Intelligence; Susan Rice, Ambassador to the United Nations; and Defense Secretary Robert Gates, who will stay on in that role for at least a year.
link: http://blogs.abcnews.com/...
There's been a considerable amount of hand-wringing in the 'sphere these days regarding Change We Can't Believe In. Can Obama offer change with so many ex-Clintonites? Can he offer change with - gasp! - a Clinton?
And on, and on, and on, and on...
Gates is a Bushie. Holder is a Clintonite who was one of Kafka's minions in the White House, involved in some way in the pardon of Marc Rich. The unfortunately named Jim Jones supported the unfortunate candidacy of John McCain.
And Hillary is...well...Hillary. Ya either love her or you really, really don't.
O what will happen to us all? O where is the Change? O why couldn't Obama just pick up the hotline and call me, or write a post on my blog, so that way I could totally give him a piece of my mind (because it isn't enough to head over to http://change.gov/ where they're asking for feedback - I want to know that the man read my own personal two cents).
I'm the last person to be an apologist for anyone. I generally go through life praising the good and criticizing the bad, and I try to leave it at that. But the Obama-angst and tea-leaf-reading of who these picks are and What It Means has really just gotten to be too much.
Do these folks have the talent and experience to help a President enact policy? Yes. As to the dangling questions regarding what that policy will be, how it will be carried out, whether these folks can play well together and whether or not Obama's serious about, for instance, pulling out of Iraq remains to be seen. I submit we have very little sense of any of these questions until we actually see the new Obama administration in action.
If Obama does not have the necessary leadership skills to pull these folks together, or if he cannot articulate a clear and understandable policy and have these folks help him enact it, that's the time to start - rightfully - criticizing him on these choices. If he starts pulling back on campaign promises like leaving Iraq, or engaging in effective diplomacy and talks without preconditions, that's when folks should raise a ruckus.
But the fear and trepidation that's been on display before any policy decisions have been made - or attempted - just makes it seem like a good number of bloggers and punditocracy are still in the sturm und drang of the campaign season.
It's governance time, folks. Let's wait and see what this government tries to do before we lambast it.