US News
Obama names Clinton, Gates to key posts (Roundup)
By Mike McCarthy Dec 1, 2008, 15:30 GMT
Washington - President-elect Barack Obama nominated Hillary Clinton as secretary of state on Monday, bringing a former rival on the campaign trail into his cabinet, and announced Defence Secretary Robert Gates will stay on the job at the Pentagon.
Clinton, 61, his former rival, will leave her job as the senator from New York if confirmed to become the nation's next top diplomat. The reappointment of Gates, 65, will ensure a smooth transition with wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Gates became the head of the Pentagon under President George W Bush in December 2006, but he will be given a new mission under Obama to bring the conflict in Iraq to an end.
'I will be giving Secretary Gates and our military a new mission as soon as I take office: responsibly ending the war in Iraq through a successful transition to Iraqi control,' Obama said in a news conference in Chicago.
Obama said during the campaign he would remove all US combat forces from Iraq within 16 months of taking office January 20. Obama's appointments require Senate confirmation.
'We must pursue a new strategy that skillfully uses, balances, and integrates all elements of American power,' Obama said.
In addition to Iraq and Afghanistan, Obama's national security and foreign policy team will have to address the nuclear activities and Iran and North Korea, the diminished US image in the world, and the difficult challenge of closing the prison for suspects in the war on terrorism at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.
Obama also named former Marine General James Jones to serve as national security advisor, and his foreign policy aide during the campaign, Susan Rice, to become US ambassador to the United Nations.
Obama nominated Eric Holder to attorney general, the top law enforcement official, and and Arizona Governor Janet Napolitano to head the Homeland Security Department.
Naming Clinton to head the State Department would bring a high-profile figure into his cabinet and further help heal wounds among Democrats over the dragged-out contest for the party's nomination.
Many Democrats who supported the former first lady refused to back Obama's candidacy for the White House.
'I have no doubt that Hillary Clinton is the right person to head our State Department,' Obama said.
With Gates at the helm, Obama keeps in place a key architect of the troop buildup in Iraq that contributed to the sharp decrease in violence during the past 15 months.
'Afghanistan is where the war on terror began, and it is where it must end,' Obama said. 'And going forward, we will continue to make the investments necessary to strengthen our military and increase our ground forces to defeat the threats of the 21st century.'
Asking Gates to stay on also helps Obama fulfill a pledge to have a bipartisan cabinet. Gates is a registered independent but has served in numerous Republican administrations. He replaced Donald Rumsfeld as Pentagon chief in December 2006.
Jones, 64, was the commandant of the Marine Corps from 1999 to 2003 before becoming the NATO's top military commander in 2003. He retired in 2007.
Clinton, defeated by Obama for the Democratic presidential nomination, said she will work to restore America's standing in the world following the Bush administration.
'We know our security, our values and our interests cannot be protected in advance by force along - nor by Americans alone,' Clinton said.
Rice, who is not related to the current US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, was among Obama's top foreign policy advisors during the campaign and formerly served on the National Security Council.
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Older Talkback
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The deadly duo of arrogance and stupidity keeps right on leading on the march into hell. People step in time to these idiots beat because of our education system. After all, we ARE talking about the same system that produced the likes of William Ayers.
The economy, boys and girls, is like the weather. It is a self-referencing iterative system. If you claim to control it, you will be blamed for whatever it does. The best policy for governments is to leave it alone.
www.youtube.com/watch?v=ly3W8SwNPKk
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PINNOCHIO THE WOODEN-TOPDec 1st, 2008 - 15:34:35
Here I am again with some literary composition to make your reading cascade into sheer ecstasy. I really do not know why I bother to construct all these undisputed masterpieces. Some illiterate moron with the morals of a church deacon keeps deleting them, so be real quick before it goes again - ABRACADABRA IT`S GONE !! But I have a copy, it will be back.
SP4 has said that Bubba Obama has no experience in anything except writing comfort letters to his personal genie Osama in the Afghan caves.
Well ESS PEE was right, the guy is totally gormless and devoid of any mental maturity and professional experience. The Dems only put him up for President because he was black and they wanted to beat Hollywood at a FIRST. So they plucked him away from his latrine cleaning job and stuck him up front to be a patsy playing point in the Presidential cattle drive.
So, now we have a President-elect who has a turnip for a brain and a blank sheet full of no experience, but does it really matter ? By the way he was not elected by public vote, he inherited the Presidential position with the electoral votes of his own party electors - THEY were the people YOU voted for.
History and even the present day is littered with dumb-bells having no experience in anything except perhaps slaughtering people, who have either led or still do lead their nations from the very top.
To name them all would be a massive task, do your own research, the list is infinite, but Idi Amin Dada, Colonel Gaddafi, Saddam Hussein, Pol Pot, Mao Tse-Tung, Yomo Kenyatta, Robert Mugabe, Nelson Mandela are just a mere handful of these illiterate despotic zombies.
Dare I add that supreme example of Mr.Goofy himself, that ham 'What`s my lines' actor - Ronald Reagan ? Oh yes, HE must be included.
Perhaps this unknown stumble-bum, gormless black guy will actually make a difference. Sometimes a person who knows damn all about a subject is far better than a so-called expert. A new broom sweeps clean, even if it has no bristles.
I`ll give you a perfect example of a lowly, grubby, uneducated man who came from nothing, had nothing, knew nothing and yet became leader of his country and transformed it from total devastation, mass unemployment, bankruptcy, famine and astronomic inflation into a major world economic power, rich nation and the most powerful military force on Earth in his time and was the sole architect of conquering the whole of Europe and most of Russia with no trouble at all, a modern day Ghengis Khan - his name ? ADOLF HITLER ! Actually the most photographed and documented person ever to walk this Earth. He should be given a posthumous Oscar.
He started life in the gutter, was a mere Corporal in WW1, where he gained the Iron Cross 2nd Class as a dispatch runner and suffered wounds in the process. His progress after the war was unemployed and hard, but he succeeded by sheer determination and perseverance to defeat all the odds and become one of histories greatest leaders. He became Chancellor of Germany and outright ruler for many years and led his country and people to economic, industrial and military glory on a world scale, never to be repeated.
Well Preezidant Bubba Obama - see if you can follow THAT !
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