Barack Obama Pressed to Form His Team

Barack Obama won’t take command of the White House until January 20th. But, “with two wars abroad and an international financial crisis in progress, he doesn’t have the period during which the new administration normally looks for its mark,” emphasizes William Galston, professor at the University of Maryland and former adviser to Bill Clinton for internal politics. He also reveals that “the need to have a perfect transition is stronger than ever during these last few decades.”

On both sides, people seem convinced of this necessity. Long ago, Barack Obama named the team charged with executing this goal. And he announced the next changes on www.change.gov, the official transition period Internet site. John Podesta, secretary general during the Clinton administration, Valerie Jarrett, adviser during the campaign, and Pete Rouse, Obama’s secretary general in the Senate, will be responsible for ensuring the transition goes smoothly, with thirty people under him.

From the side of the outgoing administration, they also want to help anticipate and be cooperative (read the Le Monde article on the transition): George Bush said he invited Barack Obama to come to the White House “as quickly as possible,” and promised, during this transition period, to keep “the president elect completely informed of important decisions.

Beginning

Observers also expect that the president elect, during the next few days, will reveal the names of the major players in his future administration, such as the secretary of treasury and secretary of state. He made it known that he already had “a good idea” of the people he could name to the higher offices, and emphasized that he would “absolutely” include Republicans in his administration. And on Wednesday morning, Barack Obama asked Democratic Representative Rahm Emanuel, another former member of Clinton’s team, to take the post of White House secretary general.

But already, American media is indulging in predicting the composition of the next administration. For the treasury, several names are circulating, like Lawrence Summers, age 54, who held the post during the last 18 months of Clinton’s second administration, or Paul Volcker, president of the Federal Reserve from 1989 to 1997, or Timothy Geithner, current president of the Federal Reserve in New York. Obama’s communication adviser, Robert Gibbs, could become the White House spokesman.

For secretary of state, the names of John Kerry, former Democratic candidate to the White House, beaten by Bush in 2004, or former diplomat Richard Holbrooke, one of the principal minds behind the Bosnia peace negotiations, are circulating. People are also citing the names of outgoing Republican Senator Chuck Hagel or former Democratic Senator Sam Nunn, who presided over the Senate’s Commission on Armed Forces from 1987 to 1995.

As another symbol of this beginning, with the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan still in progress, the new President may keep the outgoing secretary of defense, Robert Gates.