OBAMA

For Biden, No Portfolio but the Role of a Counselor 0 comments

WASHINGTON — The day before Joseph R. Biden Jr.’s birthday last week, Barack Obama surprised him after lunch with candlelighted cupcakes. Within hours, the photograph of the president-elect and his running mate, smiling over the dessert, was on the evening news.

The photograph, circulated by Mr. Obama’s office, was meant to project unity, confidence and camaraderie. But while Mr. Obama has moved quickly to assemble his White House staff and the beginnings of a cabinet, he is lagging behind even the chronically late President Bill Clinton in bringing clarity to the role his vice president will play.

So far, Mr. Biden has not been given a defined portfolio, the way Al Gore was given the environment and technology in 1992. And Mr. Obama’s aides say they do not expect Mr. Biden to assume the kind of muscular role that Vice President Dick Cheney has played over the last eight years, although he is expected to put out a number of fires.

“I’m sure that there will be discrete assignments over time,” said David Axelrod, a senior adviser to the president-elect. “But I think his fundamental role is as a trusted counselor. I think that when Obama selected him, he selected him to be a counselor and an adviser on a broad range of issues.”

Mr. Biden has spent much of the three weeks since the election in Chicago, where he has worked closely with Mr. Obama. But while Mr. Obama held a news conference in Chicago on Tuesday, Mr. Biden was home in Delaware, having spent Monday night in Wilmington stuffing Christmas stockings with his wife for a charity event.

Mr. Biden seems to be adapting. He is hiring for his office, including a chief of staff, Ron Klain, who has worked with him since he was chairman of the Judiciary Committee in the 1990s. With Mr. Obama having settled on Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton as secretary of state, Mr. Biden, whose most recent Senate post was chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, has privately told people that he recognizes he will not be the point man on foreign policy.

Mr. Biden has also interviewed candidates for chief economist, and associates say he is honing his economic credentials.

Mr. Biden has been keeping up with his outreach to foreign leaders; two weeks ago he called the three leading candidates for prime minister of Israel, Tzipi Livni, Benjamin Netanyahu and Ehud Barak. He has also reached out to President Alvaro Uribe of Colombia, President Mikheil Saakashvili of Georgia and Javier Solana, the foreign policy chief of the European Union.

Mr. Biden is spending most weekdays in Chicago, where he stays in a hotel and has lunch once a week with Mr. Obama. During the days, Mr. Biden, Mr. Obama and a coterie of advisers are in the team’s transition offices, going through possible hires. Mr. Biden has been involved in cabinet and policy decisions, offering advice to the president-elect, aides said.

Mr. Obama’s aides say Mr. Biden has backed the decision to appoint Mrs. Clinton secretary of state. “If he had made an argument against it, it would have carried a lot of weight,” a senior aide to the transition said. “He was totally in support of it.”

The lack of specificity stands in contrast to the more clearly defined role of Mr. Gore. Within days of Mr. Clinton’s election in 1992, advisers to the president-elect said Mr. Gore would be in charge of a broad initiative on science and technology, heralding what they promised would be a new era in which the government’s focus on making armaments would shift to fostering new civilian technologies and industries.

By early December 1992, even before Mr. Clinton had made any cabinet appointments, Mr. Gore was out in front on the environment, issuing a statement calling for an investigation of a hazardous-waste incinerator and signaling that the administration planned an aggressive approach to enforcing environmental laws.

During an interview with Gannett on Dec. 8, 1992, Mr. Clinton said Mr. Gore would have “certain specific responsibilities over and above” a general advisory role, including “lobbying the Congress on our program, especially in the health care area, dealing with issues related to the environment and technology.”

Obama Plans to Retain Gates at Defense Department 0 comments

WASHINGTON — President-elect Barack Obama has decided to keep Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates in his post, a show of bipartisan continuity in a time of war that will be the first time a Pentagon chief has been carried over from a president of a different party, Democrats close to the transition said Tuesday.

Mr. Obama’s advisers were nearing a formal agreement with Mr. Gates to stay on for perhaps a year, the Democrats said, and they expected to announce the decision as early as next week, along with other choices for the national security team. The two sides have been working out details on how Mr. Gates would wield authority in a new administration.

The move will give the new president a defense secretary with support on both sides of the aisle in Congress, as well as experience with foreign leaders around the world and respect among the senior military officer corps. But two years after President Bush picked him to lead the armed forces, Mr. Gates will now have to pivot from serving the commander in chief who started the Iraq war to serving one who has promised to end it.

In deciding to ask Mr. Gates to stay, Mr. Obama put aside concerns that he would send a jarring signal after a political campaign in which he made opposition to the war his signature issue in the early days. Some Democrats who have advised his campaign quietly complained that he was undercutting his own message and risked alienating war critics who formed his initial base of support, especially after tapping his primary rival, Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton, for secretary of state.

But advisers argued that Mr. Gates was a practical public servant who was also interested in drawing down troops in Iraq when conditions allow.

“From our point of view, it looks pretty damn good because of continuity and stability,” said an Obama adviser, who insisted on anonymity to discuss confidential deliberations. “And I don’t think there are any ideological problems.”

Associates said Mr. Gates was torn between a desire to retire to a home in Washington State and a sense of duty as the military faces the daunting challenges of reducing forces in Iraq and increasing them in Afghanistan.

As Mr. Obama moved closer to assembling his national security team Tuesday, he lost a top candidate for director of the Central Intelligence Agency. John O. Brennan, an agency veteran who was widely seen as the front-runner, withdrew from consideration amid concerns that he was linked to controversial intelligence programs authorized by Mr. Bush.

In a letter to Mr. Obama, Mr. Brennan said he did not want those concerns to be a “distraction” for the incoming administration. At the same time, he vigorously defended his record and called himself a “strong opponent” of the harsh interrogation methods the agency used in recent years, including waterboarding, the practice of making a suspect experience the sensation of drowning.

The developments came as Mr. Obama prepared to begin unveiling his national security team after the long Thanksgiving weekend. Besides formally announcing his nomination of Mrs. Clinton as secretary of state, Mr. Obama was expected to appoint Gen. James L. Jones, a retired Marine commandant and NATO supreme commander, as his national security adviser.

Other front-runners have emerged in recent days, including Adm. Dennis Blair, retired from the Navy, for director of national intelligence; Susan E. Rice, a former assistant secretary of state, for ambassador to the United Nations; James B. Steinberg, a former deputy national security adviser, for deputy secretary of state; and Thomas E. Donilon, a former chief of staff at the State Department, for deputy national security adviser.

The team is shaping up as one of experience more than change, figures with long résumés but at times conflicting backgrounds. Nothing reflects that more than keeping a Republican-appointed defense secretary. Although Presidents Lyndon B. Johnson and Gerald R. Ford made no change at the top of the Pentagon when they took office, no president has kept a defense secretary from a predecessor in another party, Donald Ritchie, a Senate historian, said.

Mr. Gates, who served as C.I.A. director under the first President Bush, would not have to be reconfirmed by the Senate. The prospect of retaining him generated praise from the military establishment and Capitol Hill, where he is viewed as a pragmatist who turned the Pentagon around after the tumultuous tenure of Donald H. Rumsfeld.

Verizon employees wrongly accessed Obama phone records 0 comments

WASHINGTONForeign ExchangeForeignExchange (FOREX) Forex trading What is Forex Foreign Foreign ExchangeForeignExchange (FOREX) Forex trading What is Forex Foreign (AFP) — US telephone operator Verizon Wireless has acknowledged that some of its employees accessed president-elect Barack Obama's cell phone records without authorization.What is Forex Foreign ExchangeForeignExchange (FOREX) Forex trading"This week we learned that a number of Verizon Wireless employees have, without authorization, accessed and viewed president-elect Barack Obama's personal cell phone account," the company said in a statement released late Thursday.What is Forex Foreign ExchangeForeignExchange (FOREX) Forex trading"All employees who have accessed the account -- whether authorized or not -- have been put on immediate leave, with pay," Verizon said.What is Forex Foreign ExchangeForeignExchange (FOREX) Forex tradingAs an

He said the account has been inactive for several months and Obama had been using a simple voice flip-phone without email capabilities.

"All employees who have accessed the account — whether authorized or not — have been put on immediate leave, with pay," McAdam said. "Employees with legitimate business needs for access will be returned to their positions, while employees who have accessed the account improperly and without legitimate business justification will face appropriate disciplinary action."

What is Forex Foreign ExchangeForeignExchange (FOREX) Forex trading What is Forex Foreign ExchangeForeignExchange (FOREX) Forex trading

Obama: 'Long supported hosting the Olympics' 0 comments

What is Forex Foreign ExchangeForeign
Exchange (FOREX) Forex trading information site
EarnForexChicago Tribune reporter ISTANBUL - It didn't take long for Barack Obama to start playing a significant role in promoting Chicago's bid for the 2016 Summer Olympics.
About 15 minutes into Friday's presentation of Chicago's bid plans to the general assembly of the European Olympic Committees, the president elect gave a 90-second videotaped address to an audience that included some two dozen IOC members.
That Obama found the time to tape the address in the midst of his hectic schedule after the election clearly showed his willingness to push Chicago's candidacy in a four-city race including Rio de Janeiro, Tokyo and Madrid. It was the first time Obama has shown that support in a formal presentation to the IOC.What is Forex Foreign ExchangeForeignExchange (FOREX) Forex trading information site
ForexObama delivered a message dear to the ears of the IOC: that the United States and Chicago would be honored to host the Games, both as a way to serve the Olympic movement and as an opportunity for the country to "to reach out, welcome the world to our shores and strengthen our friendships across the globe."
Chicago mayor Richard M. Daley, who arrived Friday morning in Istanbul, introduced the Obama video, which showed the President-elect sitting at a desk with the American flag at the side."In the coming years, my administration will bring a fresh perspective on America's role and responsibilities around the world," Obama said. "But if we are to truly meet our shared challenges, we must all work together. By uniting the world in a peaceful celebration of human achievement, the Olympic Games reminds us that this is possible."Chicago 2016 officials are confident Obama will accompany them for the final presentation to the IOC as 111 cast their votes on Oct. 2, 2009, in Copenhagen to select a winner.Still pictures of Obama appeared during the 20-minute Friday presentation, the third of five Chicago is making to annual assemblies of regional Olympic committees.This is what Obama said in the videotape:
"Mr. (IOC) President, members of the International Olympic Committee, ladies and gentlemen.
"While I am unable to be there in person, I wanted to take this opportunity to speak with you because I deeply believe in the Olympic movement and have long supported hosting the Olympic and Paralympic Games in my home city of Chicago.
"Over the past two years, I have spoken often about my belief that while we may come from different places and backgrounds, there are certain shared values that unite us, values at the heart of the Olympic movement: friendship, excellence and mutual respect.
What is Forex Foreign ExchangeForeignExchange (FOREX) Forex trading information siteEarnForex"In the coming years, my administration will bring a fresh perspective on America's role and responsibilities around the world. But if we are to truly meet our shared challenges, we must all work together. By uniting the world in a peaceful celebration of human achievement, the Olympic Games reminds us that this is possible.
What is Forex Foreign ExchangeForeignExchange (FOREX) Forex trading information siteEarnForex"The United States would be honored to have the opportunity to host the Games and serve the Olympic movement. As president elect, I see the Olympic and Paralympic Games as an opportunity for our nation to reach out, welcome the world to our shores and strengthen our friendships across the globe.
What is Forex Foreign ExchangeForeigExchange (FOREX) Forex trading information siteEarnForex"Thank you very much."What is Forex Foreign ExchangeForeign
Exchange (FOREX) Forex trading information siteEarnForexWhat is Forex ForeignExchangeForeignExchange (FOREX) Forex trading information siteEarnForex

Obama to Contend With High Expectations 0 comments

President-elect Barack Obama will face an international economic crisis and two wars when he takes the oath of office as the 44th president of the United States on January 20. But the new president will also have to contend with a byproduct of his political success, great expectations from Americans at home and people around the world. VOA national correspondent Jim Malone reports from Washington.What is Forex Foreign ExchangeForeign
Exchange (FOREX) Forex trading information siteEarnForex.com provides info about
Obama supporters experienced a kind of political euphoria on election night as the candidate from Illinois scored a convincing victory over his Republican opponent, Senator John McCain.What is Forex Foreign ExchangeForeignBut just a few days later, Mr. Obama took pains to caution Americans that there were no quick fixes to the nation's economic challenges.
What is Forex Foreign ExchangeForeign"It is not going to be quick and it is not going to be easy for us to dig ourselves out of the hole that we are in," he said. "But America is a strong and resilient country, and I know we will succeed if we put aside partisanship and politics and work together as one nation."What is Forex Foreign ExchangeForeignExchange (FOREX) Forex trading information siteEarnForex.com provides info about foreign exchange currency trading. Learn about Forex market, download free ForexBut the reaction at home and around the world following Mr. Obama's election victory has been notable.What is Forex Foreign ExchangeForeignExchange (FOREX) Forex trading information site
Obama supporters see his election as ushering in a new era of progressive change in Washington.
Around the world, foreign governments and various international newspapers have made it clear they expect changes in U.S. policies and viewpoints after eight years of the Bush administration.
Professor Robert Guttman directs the Center on Politics and Foreign Relations at the Johns Hopkins University in Washington. He told VOA's Encounter program that the expectations for Obama around the world are extremely highWhat is Forex Foreign ExchangeForeignExchange (FOREX) Forex trading information siteEarnForex.com provides info about foreign exchange
"We have two wars, we have an extreme economic meltdown, a financial crisis, but Obama does not have any power until January 20," he noted. "So, while there is honeymoon around the world and excitement, by the time he actually takes power a lot of people are going to be saying, well, how come he did not save this bank or how come he did not do that?"What is Forex Foreign ExchangeForeignExchange (FOREX) Forex trading information site
Another expert, Norman Ornstein of the American Enterprise Institute, says international expectations of the Obama presidency should be tempered by reality.What is Forex Foreign ExchangeForeignExchange (FOREX) Forex trading information site
"Barack Obama will be an American president who will pursue America's national interest, and America's national interest is not always the same as other country's national interest," he explained. "And so if they just think that he is going to do what they want, they are going to be sadly mistaken."What is Forex Foreign ExchangeForeignExchange (FOREX) Forex trading information siteIn the short term, Mr. Obama's transition team is focused on the monumental task of building a government ready to take power on January 20.What is Forex Foreign ExchangeForeignExchange (FOREX) Forex trading information site
"The president-elect has a total of about 3,000 political appointments at various levels that he has to make," said William Galston, an expert on government at the Brookings Institution in Washington. "There is no permanent government. There is no shadow cabinet. And so the president-elect has to create a government from scratch in about 10 weeks."
Mr. Obama demonstrated great rhetorical skills during his presidential campaign. But as presidents from Franklin Roosevelt to Ronald Reagan to Bill Clinton have realized, the power to communicate with the people can be just as important when governing.
"If a president is going to be successful, the president has to not only set the vision about where he wants to take the country, he also has to be very truthful about the challenges that the country has to confront, the sacrifices that are going to have to be made and the tough decisions that are involved in trying to deal with the problems facing this country," explained Leon Panetta, who served as White House chief of staff for former President Clinton.

Al-Qaeda calls Obama 'house-slave,' urges clashes 0 comments

What is Forex Foreign ExchangeForeign
Exchange (FOREX) Forex trading information site
EarnForex.com provides info about foreign exchange currency trading. Learn
about Forex market, download free Forex

Clinton and Obama: Compatible on foreign policy? 0 comments

Obama may give Clinton purview in area where they differed most

If President-elect Barack Obama taps Senator Hillary Clinton to be his secretary of state, he would be giving her oversight of an area where the two former rivals diverged sharply during their prolonged primary battle: foreign policy.

From their first clashes in the summer of 2007 through spring this year, Obama and Clinton fought bitterly over who had a deeper understanding of the world, exchanging sharp words over their international experience and their views on diplomacy, military strikes against terrorists, the right approach toward Iran, and the genesis of the Iraq war.

It is the one arena in which Obama and Clinton articulated significantly different visions. On a host of other issues - taxes, healthcare, jobs, free trade, investments in renewable energy - their positions were often indistinguishable.

Obama met with Clinton last week in Chicago, reportedly to discuss the secretary of state job, as the president-elect looks to begin filling his Cabinet. Obama is also said to be considering Senator John F. Kerry of Massachusetts and New Mexico Governor Bill Richardson, both of whom have significant foreign affairs experience for the post.

Although Obama's aides will not comment on potential appointments, the possibility of Clinton as the face of the United States around the globe has riveted the political world and added another wrinkle to the fraught relationship between two of Washington's leading Democrats.

"It would be a very politically mature move on his part," said Henry R. Nau, a professor of political science and international affairs at George Washington University who has worked at the State Department and National Security Council. "It would reflect a great deal of self-confidence in his leadership role."

Some analysts say that if Obama picks Clinton, it would prove his assertions that he draws inspiration from Abraham Lincoln, who asked former political opponents to help him lead the country through the Civil War.

Historian Doris Kearns Goodwin, who chronicled Lincoln's deft political maneuvering in her 2005 book "Team of Rivals," said Obama's consideration of Clinton for secretary of state is analogous to Lincoln's selecting William Seward for the same post in 1861. Seward was considered the favorite for the Republican presidential nomination, as Clinton had been for this year's Democratic nomination. Though initially dejected from the loss, Goodwin said, Seward eventually accepted Lincoln's offer to join his Cabinet and the two men developed a productive friendship.

"The parallel with Hillary is almost eerie," she said yesterday.

Russia 'pinning hopes on Obama' 0 comments

Russian President Dmitry Medvedev has said he hopes US President-elect Barack Obama will help rebuild the strained relations between their two countries.

In a speech in Washington, Mr Medvedev said that a new US administration might be able to address what he described as a lack of "necessary mutual trust".

He said he wanted to meet Mr Obama soon after he takes office in January.

The Russian leader also indicated that Russia might accept a compromise over a planned US missile shield in Europe.

Two weeks ago, he said Moscow would neutralise the possible deployment by the US of a tracking radar in the Czech Republic and missile interceptors in Poland by stationing short-range missiles in its western enclave of Kaliningrad.

The US insists the shield is incapable of threatening Russia and is designed solely to guard against missile attacks by "rogue states".

'Encouraged by signals'

In his speech to the Council on Foreign Relations following the G20 summit on the global economic crisis in Washington, President Medvedev welcomed the election of Mr Obama on 4 November.

"US-Russian relations lack the necessary mutual trust. We pin such hopes on the arrival of the new US administration," he explained.

Mr Medvedev said Russia had a strong "strategic partnership" with China, "a very good, full-fledged, friendly exchange".

"Of course I want to have the same kind of relations with the United States," he went on.

Relations between Moscow and Washington have been particularly strained since August by Russia's war with Georgia over the breakaway regions of South Ossetia and Abkhazia.

Mr Medvedev said the first step to restoring relations would be a meeting soon after Mr Obama's inauguration, "without prevarications or preconditions".

The president also said that Russia would not be the first to escalate the situation over the plans for the US missile shield in Europe.

"We will not do anything until America takes the first step," he said. Mr Medvedev said he had been encouraged by signs that Mr Obama was less enthusiastic about the shield than President George W Bush.

Obama adds staff to growing White House team 0 comments

CHICAGO (Reuters)FOREX.com - THE site for forex trading. Online currency trading w/ real time execution. Forex mini accounts from $250. Free forex charts & quotes; forex training<

President-elect Barack Obama added three officials to his White House team on Sunday, making his top aide from the Senate a senior adviser and naming two deputies to chief of staff Rahm Emanuel.

Obama's transition office said in a statement that Pete Rouse, who led Obama's staff as an Illinois senator, would join the White House as a senior adviser.

Rouse worked for former Senate Democratic Leader Tom Daschle for 19 years. Daschle, a former South Dakota senator, advised Obama during his presidential campaign and is thought to be in contention for a top post in the new administration.

Obama's office also said Mona Sutphen, a longtime foreign service officer who worked in President Bill Clinton's White House on the National Security Council, and Jim Messina, a former top aide to two U.S. senators, would both serve as deputy chief of staff.

"These individuals are important additions to a team with the experience and ability to help our nation overcome pressing challenges at home and around the world," Obama said in the statement.

The Democrat president-elect has been assembling his White House team and studying appointments to his cabinet since beating Republican rival John McCain in the November 4 election. Obama takes office on January 20.

McCain, an Arizona senator, will visit Obama in Chicago on Monday to discuss ways the two men can work together.

(Reporting by Jeff Mason; Editing by Anthony Boadle)

Lose the BlackBerry? Yes He Can, Maybe 0 comments

WASHINGTON Sorry, Mr. President. Please surrender your BlackBerry.

Those are seven words President-elect Barack Obama is dreading but expecting to hear, friends and advisers say, when he takes office in 65 days.

For years, like legions of other professionals, Mr. Obama has been all but addicted to his BlackBerry. The device has rarely been far from his side — on most days, it was fastened to his belt — to provide a singular conduit to the outside world as the bubble around him grew tighter and tighter throughout his campaign.

“How about that?” Mr. Obama replied to a friend’s congratulatory e-mail message on the night of his victory.

But before he arrives at the White House, he will probably be forced to sign off. In addition to concerns about e-mail security, he faces the Presidential Records Act, which puts his correspondence in the official record and ultimately up for public review, and the threat of subpoenas. A decision has not been made on whether he could become the first e-mailing president, but aides said that seemed doubtful.

For all the perquisites and power afforded the president, the chief executive of the United States is essentially deprived by law and by culture of some of the very tools that other chief executives depend on to survive and to thrive. Mr. Obama, however, seems intent on pulling the office at least partly into the 21st century on that score; aides said he hopes to have a laptop computer on his desk in the Oval Office, making him the first American president to do so.

Mr. Obama has not sent a farewell dispatch from the personal e-mail account he uses — he has not changed his address in years — but friends say the frequency of correspondence has diminished. In recent days, though, he has been seen typing his thoughts on transition matters and other items on his BlackBerry, bypassing, at least temporarily, the bureaucracy that is quickly encircling him.

A year ago, when many Democratic contributors and other observers were worried about his prospects against Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton, they reached out to him directly. Mr. Obama had changed his cellphone number, so e-mail remained the most reliable way of communicating directly with him.

“His BlackBerry was constantly crackling with e-mails,” said David Axelrod, the campaign’s chief strategist. “People were generous with their advice — much of it conflicting.”

Mr. Obama is the second president to grapple with the idea of this self-imposed isolation. Three days before his first inauguration, George W. Bush sent a message to 42 friends and relatives that explained his predicament.

“Since I do not want my private conversations looked at by those out to embarrass, the only course of action is not to correspond in cyberspace,” Mr. Bush wrote from his old address, G94B@aol.com. “This saddens me. I have enjoyed conversing with each of you.”

But in the interceding eight years, as BlackBerrys have become ubiquitous — and often less intrusive than a telephone, the volume of e-mail has multiplied and the role of technology has matured. Mr. Obama used e-mail to stay in constant touch with friends from the lonely confines of the road, often sending messages like “Sox!” when the Chicago White Sox won a game. He also relied on e-mail to keep abreast of the rapid whirl of events on a given campaign day.

Obama says thanks on last day as Illinois senator 0 comments

Obama announced on Thursday that his resignation from the U.S. Senate is official as of Sunday.

"Today, I am ending one journey to begin another," Obama's letter said. "After serving the people of Illinois in the United States Senate -- one of the highest honors and privileges of my life -- I am stepping down as senator to prepare for the responsibilities I will assume as our nation's next president."

Obama wrote about moving to Illinois two decades ago "as a young man eager to do my part in building a better America."

"On the South Side of Chicago, I worked with families who had lost jobs and lost hope when the local steel plant closed. It wasn't easy, but we slowly rebuilt those neighborhoods one block at a time, and in the process I received the best education I ever had," he wrote.

Obama followed his years as a community organizer and lawyer with a successful bid for the Illinois state Senate.

"It was in Springfield, in the heartland of America, where I saw all that is America converge -- farmers and teachers, businessmen and laborers, all of them with a story to tell, all of them seeking a seat at the table, all of them clamoring to be heard. It was there that I learned to disagree without being disagreeable; to seek compromise while holding fast to those principles that can never be compromised, and to always assume the best in people instead of the worst," his letter said.

His letter recalled people he met in his travels around the state during his run for the U.S. Senate four years ago.

"I still remember the young woman in East St. Louis who had the grades, the drive and the will but not the money to go to college. I remember the young men and women I met at VFW halls across the state who serve our nation bravely in Iraq and Afghanistan. And I will never forget the workers in Galesburg who faced the closing of a plant they had given their lives to, who wondered how they would provide health care to their sick children with no job and little savings," he wrote.

Obama said his memories of the people of Illinois "will stay with me when I go to the White House in January."

"The challenges we face as a nation are now more numerous and difficult than when I first arrived in Chicago, but I have no doubt that we can meet them. For throughout my years in Illinois, I have heard hope as often as I have heard heartache. Where I have seen struggle, I have seen great strength. And in a state as broad and diverse in background and belief as any in our nation, I have found a spirit of unity and purpose that can steer us through the most troubled waters," he wrote.

Obama team taps three for key positions 0 comments

President-elect Barack Obama on Saturday morning said that Valerie Jarrett, a longtime family friend and close counselor with a long history in Chicago politics, will serve as a senior White House adviser.

The Obama transition team also announced the choice of two other individuals for key positions.

Phil Schiliro, a longtime congressional investigator for Rep. Henry A. Waxman, California Democrat, will serve in the Obama administration as the head of the White House legislative affairs office.

And Ron Klain, who has been at the center of battles over the Supreme Court for the past 20 years and served as chief of staff to Vice President Al Gore in the Clinton White House, will fill the same position for Vice President-elect Joseph R. Biden Jr.

Mr. Biden spent the day Saturday in Nevada visiting his son, Joseph "Beau" Biden, a captain in the Delaware National Guard who is scheduled to deploy for Iraq soon.

Mr. Obama spent the day with his family in Chicago.

An interview with Mr. Obama and his wife, Michelle, was previewed by the CBS News program "60 Minutes."

"These individuals will be essential members of our team," Mr. Obama said in a statement released by the transition office. "I have the utmost confidence that their broad and diverse experience will serve my administration and the American people well."

Mrs. Jarrett's hiring, one day after her 52nd birthday, removes one of the top names that had been under speculation as a possible replacement to fill Mr. Obama's U.S. Senate seat, which he will vacate Sunday.

Top candidates for the seat from Illinois still include Tammy Duckworth, an Iraq war veteran and double amputee who now serves as the secretary of the Illinois Department of Veterans Affairs; Rep. Jesse L. Jackson Jr., Illinois Democrat; and Rep. Jan Schakowsky, also an Illinois Democrat.

FOREX.com is a division of GAIN Capital Group, a
dedicated partner to professional FX traders and fund managers worldwide.
Institutional services include IB programs, white label solutions, and asset
management. Individual forex traders can take advantage of the market expertise
and financial strength of GAIN Capital Group and access an institutional FX
trading platform, FOREXTrader, along with our powerful real-time forex charts,
professional forex market research, and suite of advanced forex trading tools.
For traders new to the currency trading, FOREX.com offers forex training
programs, forex minis, and information about trading the foreign currency
market.

Barack Obama, Forever Sizing Up 0 comments

From his days leading The Harvard Law Review to his victorious presidential campaign, Barack Obama has always run meetings by a particular set of rules.Everyone contributes; silent lurkers will be interrogated. (He wants to “suck the room of every idea,” said Valerie Jarrett, a close adviser.) Mention a theory and Mr. Obama asks how it translates on the ground. He orchestrates debate, playing participants off each other — and then highlights their areas of agreement. He constantly restates others’ contributions in his own invariably more eloquent words. But when the session ends, his view can remain a mystery, and his ultimate call is sometimes a surprise to everyone who was present.

Those meetings, along with the career they span, provide hints about what sort of president Mr. Obama might be. They suggest a cool deliberator, a fluent communicator, a professor with a hunger for academic expertise but little interest in abstraction. He may be uncomfortable making decisions quickly or abandoning a careful plan. A President Obama would prize consensus, except when he would disregard it. And his lifelong penchant for control would likely translate into a disciplined White House.

Winning the presidency is the latest in a lifetime of dramatic, self-induced transformations: from a child reared in Indonesia and Hawaii to a member of Chicago’s African-American community; from an atheist to a Christian; from a wonkish academic to the smoothest of politicians; and now, from an upstart who eight years ago was crushed in a Congressional race to the first black commander in chief of the only superpower on earth.

Turning deficits into assets — a skill Mr. Obama learned in his 20s as a community organizer — could well be called the motto of his rise. With his literary gifts, he transformed a fatherless childhood into a stirring coming-of-age tale. He used a glamourless state senator’s post as the foundation of his political career. He mobilized young people — never an ideal base, because of thin wallets and historically poor turnout — into an energetic army who in turn enlisted parents and grandparents. And even though his exotic name, Barack Hussein Obama, has spurred false rumors and insinuations about his background and beliefs, he has made it a symbol of his singularity and of America’s possibility.

But in the Oval Office, Mr. Obama would have a new set of deficits. Just 47 years old and only four years into a national political career, he has never run anything larger than his campaign. He began his run for president while he was still getting lost in Washington, a city he does not yet know well. His promises are as vast as his résumé is short, and some of his pledges are competing ones: progressive rule and centrist red-blue fusion; wholesale transformation and down-to-earth pragmatism.

Mr. Obama’s ambition and confidence have long confounded critics and annoyed rivals. In 2006, the still-new United States senator appeared before Washington’s elite at the spring dinner of the storied Gridiron Club, and as tradition dictated, roasted himself. He ticked off the evidence of his popularity: the Democratic convention speech that had won him national celebrity, the best-selling books, the magazine covers.

“Really, what else is there to do?” he said in mock innocence. “Well, I guess I could pass a law or something.”

He passed a few. By the end of the year, he was running for president.