President-elect Barack Obama (center) during his first press conference, in Chicago, following his election victory, Nov. 7, 2008.
Nov. 11, 2008 | Amid the fervid speculation over the identity of the next secretary of state or even the next assistant secretary of labor for administration and management, there is a truth that is galling to gossip-mongers — Barack Obama and his closest advisors know how to keep secrets. With nearly 10 percent of the transition period between administrations already gone, we know more about the factors that will dictate the selection of the White House puppy than we do about the reasoning behind the choice of a would-be Treasury secretary.
As Valerie Jarrett, co-chair of Obama’s transition team, put it with deliberate blandness on “Meet the Press” Sunday: “I think one of the real strengths of Sen. Obama’s campaign and now President-elect Obama’s transition is that he really does like to think this through thoroughly and not telecast what he’s going to do until he’s ready to make a decision.”
No one wants to read articles titled “Entire Obama Administration Shrouded in Mist and Mystery.” So to accentuate the positive, we do have a pretty reliable handle as to who will be in the room with Obama (and presumably Joe Biden) when the major personnel decisions are made. There will be Jarrett, an African-American Chicago real estate entrepreneur who has been close friends to the president-elect and the incoming first lady for two decades; Pete Rouse, the press-shy former chief of staff for Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle, who performed the same role for a newly elected Illinois senator named Obama; the Chicago-born John Podesta, Bill Clinton’s former White House chief of staff, who stealthily organized the Obama transition during the fall campaign from his Washington perch at the Center for American Progress; David Axelrod, the Chicago-based political strategist, who was the inspiration behind both Obama’s up-from-nowhere 2004 Senate victory and his 2008 run for the Rose Garden; and incoming White House chief of staff Rahm Emanuel, a sharp-elbowed veteran of the Clinton White House who was elected to Congress in 2002 (from Chicago, natch) with the help of Axelrod (double natch).
With all these Chicagoans (aside from Rouse) creating the Obama administration, it is time to drop the Second City urban inferiority complex. If there is an ideological orientation to this team, it seems to be Democratic centrism rather than full-throated liberalism. Bill Galston, a former top domestic advisor to Clinton now at the Brookings Institution, notes that Obama “has a great respect for expertise. His instinct is that in any field, gather the leading experts and go after them.” As Galston puts it, “This is not amateur hour — this is not crony time.” Paul Light, a professor of public service at New York University and an expert on governmental organization, said admiringly, “Obama is extremely well-prepared. There is a lot of talk coming out of the Bush administration about a seamless transition. But in many instances, the Obama people know as much about what is happening in the Cabinet agencies as the Bush people do.”
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November 11, 2008 at 11:46 pm
ibrahim jillani
A message to the WHITE President:
Excellence is not a destination;
It is a continuous journey that never ends.
C-H-A-N-G-E—- W-E—–N-E-E-D
A future paradigm shift maker and a beacon of hope for US and the rest of the world’s despondent nation, fighting for a better change has come true- as the change has come to the United States. The world has the habit of making room for the man whose actions show that he knows where he is going. Paradigms are powerful because they create the lens through which we see the world.
All personal breakthroughs begin with a change in beliefs. So how do we change? The Bantu socializing with the whites; the elimination of racial discrimination, you must feel deep in your gut that not only has this belief cost you pain in the past, but it’s costing you in the present and, ultimately, can only bring you pain in the future. As a result you have been chosen above all the ethnicity and for a true democratic process, irrespective of all tribes, clans, color and races, then you must associate tremendous pleasure
to the idea of adopting a new, empowering belief which is the necessity of the world’s nation today.
Mr. President-elect YOU ARE NOT A MERELY PRESIDENT AS THE PRESIDENTS BEFORE, YOU ARE GOING TO MARK HISTORY! Since you have great challenges ahead waiting for you to combat than ever before in the history! Life is constantly testing your for your level of commitment, and life’s greatest rewards are reserved for you when you demonstrate a never-ending commitment to act until you achieve. This level of resolve can move mountains.
It is recognize that the power individuals have to change virtually anything and everything in their lives in an instant. It is learned that the resources we need to turn our dreams into reality are within us, merely waiting for the day when we decide to wake up and claim our birthright.
You may not control what happens to you, but you can control your attitude toward what happens to you, and in that, you will be mastering change rather than allowing it to master you. You have gained the mandate for a better change!
IF YOU DON’T LIKE HOW THINGS ARE, CHANGE it! YOU ARE NOT A TREE.
Ibrahim Jillani