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When you’re selling something really expensive and not very palatable, it’s best to choose the words in your sales pitch carefully. At least that seems to be the wisdom revealed in a Bloomberg report today that says Team Obama has been polling to choose the phrases it — and Congress— should use to promote the humongous economic stimulus package they are working on. Bad: recession. Good: recovery. Bad: infrastructure. Good: investment. David Axelrod and campaign adviser Jim Margolis are behind the effort. But Obama spokesman Robert Gibbs said the polling won’t shape what goes in the plan, just how it...

NEW YORK (Reuters) – Robert Rubin, the former Treasury Secretary, resigned from Citigroup Inc on Friday, following months of criticism of his performance at the giant U.S. bank. Rubin, 70, is stepping down immediately as senior counselor at New York-based Citigroup. He will remain a director until the bank's annual meeting later this year. Rubin joined Citigroup in 1999. In a letter to Chief Executive Vikram Pandit, Rubin praised management for making the "tough decisions" to restore Citigroup to health, following $20.3 billion of losses in the year ended Sept 30. But he admitted to not having foreseen the credit...

Robert Rubin, the former Treasury secretary who has been sharply criticized over his role in the financial turmoil at Citigroup Inc., plans to leave the bank and has submitted a letter of resignation, according to a person familiar with the situation.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – President-elect Barack Obama on Thursday named four former Clinton administration officials to top defense positions, including former Pentagon comptroller William Lynn as deputy defense secretary. The four officials will form a senior policy team under Defense Secretary Robert Gates, who has agreed to stay on as Pentagon chief in the Obama administration. ... "I am confident that these distinguished individuals have the expertise and commitment needed to help me implement a sustainable national security strategy," Obama said in a statement.

On January 5, the nation's new media learned that President-elect Barack Obama would nominate former congressman and Clinton administration official Leon Panetta as the next director of the Central Intelligence Agency. Obama's choice reportedly caught some veteran Democratic senators who had not been briefed of the decision off-guard, and some voiced their skepticism that that Bill Clinton's former chief of staff and director of the Office of Management and Budget possessed sufficient experience in the intelligence field to handle the job. The New York Times reported on January 7: "Mr. Panetta's lack of experience had drawn the sharpest criticism on...

07 Jan 2009 Transition officials confirm that President-elect Obama has asked Dennis Ross, Richard Haass, and Richard Holbrooke, to serve as his chief emissaries to world hot spots. It's expected that Ross will get the Iran portfolio, that Holbrooke, the hard-headed architect of the Dayton Peace Accords, will take the tough (and tougher) Southwest Asia portfolio, which includes India, Afghanistan and Pakistan, and that Haass will deal with the Middle East.

Guess who thinks Leon Panetta will be just perfect at CIA? Samuel R. "Sandy" Berger, Lake's deputy before becoming national security adviser himself, said that Panetta "was part of the decision-making process for every single issue we were dealing with, whether this was in the Oval Office with the president or the Cabinet Room — the Middle East, Kosovo, China. He was a part of a small group of people who advised the president how to proceed on strategy and substance." Yes, that Sandy Berger. Former National Security Adviser Sandy Berger was sentenced Thursday to community service and probation and...

In filling four senior Justice Department positions Monday, President-elect Barack Obama signaled that he intends to roll back Bush administration counterterrorism policies authorizing harsh interrogation techniques, warrantless spying and indefinite detentions of terrorism suspects. The most startling shift was Obama's pick of Indiana University law professor Dawn Johnsen to take charge of the Office of Legal Counsel, the unit that's churned out the legal opinions that provided a foundation for expanding President George W. Bush's national security powers. Johnsen, who spent five years in the Office of Legal Counsel during the Clinton administration and served as its acting chief, has...

Wow. Today is just one big, bad joke. Al Franken. Roland Burris. Bill Richardson. Now this: Leon Panetta will head Obama’s CIA. Another day, another clueless Clinton crony named to a top job for which he has no experience. The unqualified fish rots from the head down, after all. Via NYT. Damned scary: President-elect Barack Obama has selected Leon E. Panetta, the former congressman and White House chief of staff, to take over the Central Intelligence Agency, an organization that Mr. Obama criticized during the campaign for using interrogation methods he decried as torture, Democratic officials said Monday. Mr. Panetta...

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Former Democratic National Committee chairman Terry McAuliffe said on Saturday he intends to run for governor of Virginia. After months of speculation over his plans, McAuliffe announced his intentions in a video posted on his Web site. In the video, McAuliffe said he will make his intention to run official on Wednesday as part of a week-long campaign kickoff. The stops include town hall meetings in Hampton Roads, Bristol, Richmond and others, where McAuliffe will unveil plans for job creation, education and renewable energy. "Over the coming months we will travel to every corner of the commonwealth to ask all...

California's intellectual pipeline to the White House is again open wide and flowing, as the Golden State will have key advocates bending President-elect Barack Obama's ear on its behalf. Naturally, the nation's most populous and electorally rich state (which is also rich with campaign contributors) would have a great deal of influence. But the Democratic stronghold mattered less to the Bush administration. As Chris Lehane, a former Clinton administration official and San Francisco political consultant, said: "Before, the door was slammed in our face. Now, the welcome mat is out. The access issue is a big deal." "You have an...

Two people who served as top aides in the Clinton administration are expected to join the State Department when Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton becomes secretary of state. James Steinberg, a deputy national security adviser under President Bill Clinton, will be nominated for deputy secretary of state. Jacob J. Lew, the budget director under Clinton, will oversee management and budget issues. People familiar with President-elect Barack Obama's transition team confirmed the appointments on condition of anonymity because the decisions were not yet public. In a unique division of authority, Steinberg is expected to focus on foreign policy issues while Lew will...

WASHINGTON (AFP) – US president-elect Barack Obama on Saturday signaled climate change and genetic research will be among his top priorities when he takes office as he named four key members of his administration. "It's time we once again put science at the top of our agenda and worked to restore America's place as the world leader in science and technology," said Obama in a weekly radio address. Leading his list of nominees is John Holdren, who would become director of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy and co-chairman of the president's Council of Advisors on Science...

Isn't that 'special'?!!!

It’s official. The old Clinton gang really is back together again. Answering the phones these days for the co-chairman of President-elect Barack Obama’s transition, John D. Podesta, is none other than Betty Currie. Emerging from retirement in southern Maryland to volunteer at Obama headquarters, Ms. Currie was the personal secretary to President Bill Clinton, who became caught up in an independent counsel investigation into his trysts with the White House intern Monica Lewinsky. Since leaving the White House, Ms. Currie, 69, has shied from publicity and kept a low profile in Hollywood, Md., where she lives with her husband, Bob,...

Developing...

Yet another Clintonite has been wheeled out of the political morgue to serve in the Obama administration. Carol Browner, a neon-green radical who headed the Environmental Protection Agency from 1993-2000, is widely rumored to be the president-elect's choice for "energy czar." But an ethical cloud still hangs over Browner's EPA legacy. It doesn't take a team of Ivy League lawyers to figure out that this is one more headache the Hope and Change crew doesn't need. In the spirit of reaching across the aisle, let me dust off the cobwebs and help out all the smarty-pants vetters on the Obama...

If there is one message President-elect Barack Obama’s transition team has broadcast about Cabinet picks, it is that ethnicity and gender will not be the first considerations when filling the slots. Credentials over tokenism, after all, was a fundamental principle of Obama’s presidential campaign that highlighted his ideas and community values over his African-American background. Still, if all goes as planned, Cabinet members with hefty résumés will present a picture of diversity. Hispanic political leaders agree. Their expectations for seats at the president’s top policy table are not about meeting quotas but about advancing the reality that within this fastest-growing...

Amid the blizzard of résumés blanketing Washington as the Obama era dawns, there is a superbly qualified candidate for full employment whose name has been overlooked. We refer, of course, to William Jefferson Clinton, America's 42nd chief executive and commander in chief. Yet now, by a wonderful combination of circumstances, comes an opportunity to harness his unquestioned political talents to benefit his country, the Democratic Party, New York state and his spouse. If, as is expected, Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton becomes secretary of state, New York Gov. David Paterson could send her husband to the U.S. Senate. Doing so would...

CHAPEL HILL - UNC-system President Erskine Bowles wants a commission to determine whether every state university campus in North Carolina should establish a university code that blocks hate speech. No such rules now exist at UNC campuses, Bowles said. Bowles' decision came less than a month after four N.C. State University students spray-painted political statements, which many deemed racially inflammatory and threatening, on the Free Expression Tunnel on campus. Bowles met Tuesday afternoon with leaders of the state chapter of the NAACP. After the meeting, he declared the graffiti hate speech. "I find this whole incident to be deplorable," Bowles...

Nothing says Hope and Change like the return of the Clintons to Washington, does it? Apparently, if you really want change, we need to go beyond appointing Hillary to run the State Department — we need to give Bill an official job as well. Karl Meyer and Shareen Blair Brysac make their argument that New York Governor David Paterson should appoint Bill as Hillary’s replacement without bothering to mention the little detail of Bill serving in same body that debated whether to convict him after his impeachment :

WASHINGTON — President-elect Barack Obama is weighing prospects for energy secretary... Possible candidates mentioned to head the department range from Sen. Jeff Bingaman, D-N.M., to Kansas Gov. Kathleen Sebelius and Dan Reicher, who directs energy initiatives at a Google foundation. Another candidate that had been mentioned is Houston Mayor Bill White... Reicher, 52, is, perhaps, the most prominent contender for an out-of-the-box choice. The biology major at Dartmouth and a graduate of Stanford law school served in the Clinton administration as an assistant secretary for energy efficiency and renewable energy. He now heads climate change and energy initiatives at Google.org,...

Obama Names Bill Clinton to Presidential Post WASHINGTON DC - Ending weeks of speculation and rumors, President-Elect Barack Obama today named Bill Clinton to join his incoming administration as President of the United States, where he will head the federal government's executive branch. "I am pleased that Bill Clinton has agreed to come out of retirement to head up this crucial post in my administration," said Obama. "He brings a lifetime of previous executive experience as Governor of Arkansas and President of the United States, and has worked closely with most of the members of my Cabinet." Clinton said he...

It is still hard to believe but, if Hillary Clinton's "confidantes" are to be trusted, Barack Obama is about to appoint her secretary of state and she is about to accept. This appointment represents the betrayal capstone of Obama's promise to be the "change we can believe in." Having upended the Democratic Party, largely over his different views on foreign policy and the war in Iraq, he now turns to the leader of the ancient regime he ousted, derided, mocked, and criticized to take over the top international-affairs position in his administration. No longer, apparently, does he distrust Hillary's "judgment,"...

Well, this could certainly start the confirmation hearings off with a bang! Doug C. alerts us to an interesting development in the case of Eric Holder, prospective Attorney General. I received today via email, the scan of a sworn declaration from a confidential witness. The hard copy will be in my possession in a few days. Neither the name nor sex of the witness will be revealed at this time. The witness is prepared to testify and should testify in the confirmation hearings of Hillary Clinton and Eric Holder. A statement by the witness will be on YouTube in...

I spent several years of the Clinton administration writing about one scandal or controversy after another. There was, of course, the Whitewater affair and the fight over the independent counsel, Kenneth Starr. There was the Lewinsky matter. Travelgate. The bitter controversy over Elian Gonzalez. The furor over Bill Clinton's last-minute pardons. And more. It seems like so long ago. So why am I suddenly hitting the search feature on my laptop ten times a day, looking for old articles? Why am I looking for names like Eric Holder, Gregory Craig, Rahm Emanuel, and John Podesta? Because change has come to...

WHEN President Bill Clinton pardoned a billionaire fugitive from justice on his last day in office, even usually loyal Democrats were dismayed. Representative Henry Waxman of California called it “bad precedent” and “an end run around the judicial process.” He said it appeared to set a double standard for the wealthy and powerful. The billionaire was Marc Rich, a commodities trader, and his pardon is a subject of discussion again because Eric Holder, Mr. Clinton’s deputy attorney general at the time[.]

Greg Craig has quite a client list — a who’s who of miscreants and foreign foes of the U.S. Logic, political acumen, and a working knowledge of and respect for the Constitution are not required to write columns for the New York Times. But usually these deficits are better hidden.

For yea these last two years, the picture we have had of our president-elect has been, without exception, that of a gentleman, proud yet humble, with an inner centeredness and an outer composure that have fascinated and often mystified the nation. Where, we kept asking ourselves, did such a man come from? What elements of fate and nature merged in him to create this preternaturally poised leader? Moreover, he surrounded himself with people who seemed much like him. Never was there an argument in his campaign that saw the light of celebrity's voracious day; never did one of his assistants...

NOTE: it is lengthy, but it really is worth reading the entire article. I've sent a note to St. Clair regarding some additional info he did not have. +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ Fixers Indicated That Hillary Was a Key Player in the Marc Rich Pardon Deal Bill Clinton and the Rich Women By JEFFREY ST. CLAIR Despite her campaign’s ongoing slurs against Bill Richardson, the nation’s only Hispanic governor, Hillary Clinton probably feels like she has Puerto Rico, the final primary, in the bank. Those delegates were sown up nine years ago on August 16, 1999, when Bill Clinton issued commutations for 16...

David Axelrod, the incoming White House senior adviser, said Sunday that President-elect Obama is deliberately appointing a strong Cabinet but that final decisions will still rest with the Oval Office. They are not going to be potted plants. ... They are going to be partners with him in governance, and he is going to encourage that.

"It's like Keystone Cops."

"John McCain has decided to run for George Bush's third term, and we can't afford it." If Barack Obama stated that once during his campaign, he stated it hundreds of times. And the fact that Senator McCain had alienated his own party by being a thorn in Bush’s side for much of the past eight years didn’t matter. It was a clever way for Obama to label McCain during the campaign, and by all indications, it worked. So now, what are we to make of the return of the Clinton gang to Washington? As one liberal blogger noted, “Barack Obama...

PRESIDENT-ELECT Barack Obama is executing the pirouette familiar to politicians who inveigh against Washington: First you run against its insiders, then you hire them. During the campaign, the candidate made some overly broad promises about ejecting lobbyists from the government Now, as president-elect, he is trying to adjust those declarations to the reality that an absolute ban on lobbyists would be both unnecessary and self-defeating.

NEW YORK – President-elect Barack Obama will announce the leaders of his economic team Monday, naming Timothy Geithner as treasury secretary and Lawrence Summers to direct the National Economic Council, transition officials said.

WHEN President Bill Clinton pardoned a billionaire fugitive from justice on his last day in office, even usually loyal Democrats were dismayed. Representative Henry Waxman of California called it “bad precedent” and “an end run around the judicial process.” He said it appeared to set a double standard for the wealthy and powerful. The billionaire was Marc Rich, a commodities trader, and his pardon is a subject of discussion again because Eric Holder, Mr. Clinton’s deputy attorney general at the time and a key figure in the clemency process, is reported to be Barack Obama’s choice for attorney general. In...

The bank’s downfall was years in the making and involved many in its hierarchy, particularly Mr. Prince and Robert E. Rubin, an influential director and senior adviser. Citigroup insiders and analysts say that Mr. Prince and Mr. Rubin played pivotal roles in the bank’s current woes, by drafting and blessing a strategy that involved taking greater trading risks to expand its business and reap higher profits. Mr. Prince and Mr. Rubin both declined to comment for this article. When he was Treasury secretary during the Clinton administration, Mr. Rubin helped loosen Depression-era banking regulations that made the creation of Citigroup...

In the VIDEO below, Eric Holder testifies before the Senate Judiciary Committee on the pardons extended by President Clinton to the 16 FALN terrorists. Then Judiciary Committee Chairman Orin Hatch grills Holder concerning the lack of screening in connection with the pardons. In 1999, over the objections of the FBI, the Bureau of Prisons, and prosecuting attorneys, Holder supported Clinton's commutation of the sentences of 16 FALN terrorists who even Holder conceded had not expressed any remorse. The commutations were nakedly political, obviously designed by Clinton to assist his wife's impending Senate campaign by appealing to New York's substantial Puerto...

As President-elect Barack Obama quickly selects officials for his administration, attention is starting to turn to the potential obstacles they face in Senate confirmation hearings. The Associated Press, citing a Democratic source, reports that John Podesta, a leader of Obama's transition team, had told Senate aides on Friday that Obama hoped for a speedy confirmation so the new administration could get to work quickly thereafter. But past controversies involving some of his picks could make for bloody hearings. The latest list of Obama's expected Cabinet selections includes Hillary Clinton for secretary of state, Timothy Geithner as his Treasury secretary, Eric...

DailyKos and DemocraticUndergroud types are starting to get a bit miffed at their messiah. So far, no one from their ranks has been given the nod to take a spot on Obama's staff or to fill his cabinet openings. The "progressives" are noticing, too, that far from bringing a "new" wave of politics to Washington, so far Obama is bringing back the age of Clinton. Instead of Washington becoming Obamopolis, it is a re-birthed Clintonville that is rising like a phoenix from the ashes. It is certainly too early to claim that Barack Obama is going to be a centrist...

President-elect Barack Obama is expected to name two attorneys to his administration who helped return Elián González to Cuba, angering some Miami Republicans. Two veterans of the Elián González saga are expected to be named to top posts in Democrat Barack Obama's administration, infuriating some Cuban-American Republicans who haven't forgotten the 6-year-old boy seized in Miami and sent back to the communist regime. The Associated Press is reporting that Obama's top choice for U.S. attorney general is Eric Holder, who served as deputy attorney general during the 2000 raid in Miami. Greg Craig, who represented González's father in the custody...

WASHINGTON - Eric Holder is in line for nomination by President-elect Barack Obama to the attorney general's job that Holder has long wanted, but the 2001 episode with fugitive financier Marc Rich is stirring partisan acrimony. The role of the former deputy attorney general in the pardon of Rich opened Holder to strong criticism from Capitol Hill in a political uproar that Republicans refuse to forget nearly eight years later. The Republican National Committee is resurrecting the episode, circulating an e-mail Wednesday that asks, "Why does Obama want to appoint an attorney general with a long history of controversial pardons?"...

Hillary and Bill Clinton drama begins to tarnish Barack Obama's takeover Tim Reid and Tom Baldwin in Washington Barack Obama sought to stamp out signs of discord yesterday as his team blamed Bill and Hillary Clinton for tarnishing the presidential transition with the type of psychological drama and leaks that marked their years in the White House. As the uncertainty over whether Mrs Clinton would accept the job of Secretary of State dragged on, aides from both camps were engaged in anonymous briefings that echoed the bitter exchanges of their marathon primary battle earlier this year. After the Obama camp...

DailyKos and DemocraticUndergroud types are starting to get a bit miffed at their messiah. So far, no one from their ranks has been given the nod to take a spot on Obama's staff or to fill his cabinet openings. The "progressives" are noticing, too, that far from bringing a "new" wave of politics to Washington, so far Obama is bringing back the age of Clinton. Instead of Washington becoming Obamopolis, it is a re-birthed Clintonville that is rising like a phoenix from the ashes. It is certainly too early to claim that Barack Obama is going to be a...

Little did we know that “Change we can believe in” really meant “Change that will delight the Right and freak out the Left.” But if the rumors and hints about President-elect Barack Obama’s cabinet picks are any clue, it may be that both conservatives and liberals had Barack Obama pegged wrong. If several months ago someone had said that the Obama administration would be chocked full of Clinton administration retreads and have a national security team featuring the woman who advocated bombing Iran to smithereens in the event it launched a nuclear attack on Israel, few would have believed it....

The election is over. America lost and a new era in American government is soon to emerge, right? Wait, are we sure a new change is coming? Pardon me for a moment as I make a case against this so-called new change. When reading the daily news, Op-Eds and listening to discussion about the Obama transition team, exactly where are the new people? The same names we heard throughout the 1990s, names such as Richardson, Kerry, Clinton, Raines, Daschle and Gorelick are being written about daily. Seriously, Obama’s advisory board is kidding, right? Gorelick's history shows while she worked at...

Most notable among the petitions for clemency granted during Holder’s tenure is the request from 16 members of a Puerto Rican Marxist terrorist group, the Armed Forces of National Liberation, known by its Spanish acronym FALN, which engaged in a robbery and terror campaign in both the U.S. and Puerto Rico during the 1970s and 1980s. The clemency petition, which was supported by Reps. Luis Gutierrez (D-N.Y.), Jose Serrano (D-N.Y.) and Nydia Velazquez (D-N.Y.), became the subject of fiery controversy after it was revealed that none of the convicted terrorists had renounced violence and that their victims had not been...

Obama Appoints Castro's Lawyer as White House Counsel By Humberto Fontova Among the throng of Clinton regime retreads recruited for the Obama administration we find Gregory Craig. Craig served as Obama's advisor on Latin American during the campaign, and was appointed last week as chief White House Counsel. The MSM has mentioned Craig's role as Bill Clinton's impeachment lawyer, but mostly has omitted mention of Craig's role as chief facilitator for Fidel Castro's shanghaiing of Elian Gonzalez. Officially Craig served as attorney for Elian's father, Juan Miguel Gonzalez. This humble man worked as a hotel doorman in a nation where...