HOLLYWOOD
12-24-2008, 06:36 AM
More of the Same Change!
2 more Ex-Bill Clinton aides to join State Dept.
http://www.baynews9.com/content/86/2008/12/23/418058.html (http://www.baynews9.com/content/86/2008/12/23/418058.html)
WASHINGTON (AP) -- 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 handle day-to-day operations. Hillary Clinton is also known to be exploring the appointment of special mediators for trouble spots such as the Middle East.
While Steinberg's appointment would fill out the traditional State deputy role codified under the Bush and Clinton administrations for taking on broad policy and administrative functions, Lew's nomination would break new ground, providing Clinton with a strong advocate for increased funding and resources inside the Obama administration.
Lew, 53, the chief operating officer of Citi Alternative Investments, a division of Citigroup, is well schooled in government budget issues from his stint running the Office of Management and Budget. He spent several years in senior positions at the OMB in the Clinton administration before being named as the office's director in 1998.
Before working at OMB, Lew worked in the Clinton White House and had a key role drafting the national service initiative and health care reform legislation. His Washington career began in 1973 as a legislative aide on Capitol Hill.
In 1979, Lew became a principal domestic policy adviser to House Speaker Thomas P. "Tip" O'Neill Jr. He spent nearly eight years at the House Democratic Steering and Policy Committee.
Born in New York, Lew graduated from Harvard in 1978 and received a law degree from Georgetown University in 1983.
Steinberg, 55, had initially been considered a candidate for national security adviser in the Obama administration, but he gravitated toward State with Obama's decision to appoint Gen. James Jones to oversee the National Security Council.
From December 1996 to August 2000 Steinberg was deputy national security adviser to President Clinton. Prior to that, he was chief of staff at the State Department and director of the department's policy planning staff.
Steinberg was an early advocate for setting dates for the withdrawal of U.S. combat forces from Iraq. In 2005, he wrote that the growing insurgency in Iraq was due partly to "indigenous hostility" over the presence of U.S. and coalition forces and removing the bulk of them would improve security.
"The maximalist views of a flourishing, pluralist democracy (in Iraq) with everything sort of honey and roses is not going to be achieved anytime in the near future and it can't be the objective of our military presence," Steinberg said in July during a panel discussion at the Aspen Ideas Festival in Aspen, Colo.
Steinberg has also criticized the Bush administration's heavy use of American military and economic power as cure-alls for global challenges. The result has been a pugnacious, us-or-them approach that's undermined U.S. influence abroad, he has argued, and frustrated international cooperation on other critical issues, like climate change and pandemic disease.
"If we want others to work with us, we have to be responsive to their concerns as well," Steinberg said in Aspen. We can't just say it's our way or the highway."
In an e-mail sent late Monday to staff at the University of Texas at Austin, where he serves as dean of the Lyndon B. Johnson School of Public Affairs, Steinberg said he welcomed the job.
"If confirmed (by the Senate) it will be a great privilege to serve with President Obama, Secretary of State-designate Clinton and the entire national security team at this time of great challenge but also of great opportunity for the United States and the world," he said.
A close and early supporter of Obama, Steinberg has been dean of the Johnson school for three years after leaving the Brookings Institution in Washington, where he was vice president and director of foreign policy studies from 2001 to 2005.
During his NSC stint in the Clinton administration, Steinberg earned a reputation as a hands-on manager _ and one with a short fuse. His intensity and quick temper could unsettle subordinates and make him unpopular with military and intelligence officers.
He's changed since then, friends insist.
"When he was younger he had a reputation for being a little bit on the arrogant side," said Nancy Soderberg, U.S. ambassador to the United Nations in the late 1990s. "And I've seen him really mellow over time."
A Boston native, Steinberg graduated from Harvard in 1973 at age 20. Five years later he received a law degree from Yale.
2 more Ex-Bill Clinton aides to join State Dept.
http://www.baynews9.com/content/86/2008/12/23/418058.html (http://www.baynews9.com/content/86/2008/12/23/418058.html)
WASHINGTON (AP) -- 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 handle day-to-day operations. Hillary Clinton is also known to be exploring the appointment of special mediators for trouble spots such as the Middle East.
While Steinberg's appointment would fill out the traditional State deputy role codified under the Bush and Clinton administrations for taking on broad policy and administrative functions, Lew's nomination would break new ground, providing Clinton with a strong advocate for increased funding and resources inside the Obama administration.
Lew, 53, the chief operating officer of Citi Alternative Investments, a division of Citigroup, is well schooled in government budget issues from his stint running the Office of Management and Budget. He spent several years in senior positions at the OMB in the Clinton administration before being named as the office's director in 1998.
Before working at OMB, Lew worked in the Clinton White House and had a key role drafting the national service initiative and health care reform legislation. His Washington career began in 1973 as a legislative aide on Capitol Hill.
In 1979, Lew became a principal domestic policy adviser to House Speaker Thomas P. "Tip" O'Neill Jr. He spent nearly eight years at the House Democratic Steering and Policy Committee.
Born in New York, Lew graduated from Harvard in 1978 and received a law degree from Georgetown University in 1983.
Steinberg, 55, had initially been considered a candidate for national security adviser in the Obama administration, but he gravitated toward State with Obama's decision to appoint Gen. James Jones to oversee the National Security Council.
From December 1996 to August 2000 Steinberg was deputy national security adviser to President Clinton. Prior to that, he was chief of staff at the State Department and director of the department's policy planning staff.
Steinberg was an early advocate for setting dates for the withdrawal of U.S. combat forces from Iraq. In 2005, he wrote that the growing insurgency in Iraq was due partly to "indigenous hostility" over the presence of U.S. and coalition forces and removing the bulk of them would improve security.
"The maximalist views of a flourishing, pluralist democracy (in Iraq) with everything sort of honey and roses is not going to be achieved anytime in the near future and it can't be the objective of our military presence," Steinberg said in July during a panel discussion at the Aspen Ideas Festival in Aspen, Colo.
Steinberg has also criticized the Bush administration's heavy use of American military and economic power as cure-alls for global challenges. The result has been a pugnacious, us-or-them approach that's undermined U.S. influence abroad, he has argued, and frustrated international cooperation on other critical issues, like climate change and pandemic disease.
"If we want others to work with us, we have to be responsive to their concerns as well," Steinberg said in Aspen. We can't just say it's our way or the highway."
In an e-mail sent late Monday to staff at the University of Texas at Austin, where he serves as dean of the Lyndon B. Johnson School of Public Affairs, Steinberg said he welcomed the job.
"If confirmed (by the Senate) it will be a great privilege to serve with President Obama, Secretary of State-designate Clinton and the entire national security team at this time of great challenge but also of great opportunity for the United States and the world," he said.
A close and early supporter of Obama, Steinberg has been dean of the Johnson school for three years after leaving the Brookings Institution in Washington, where he was vice president and director of foreign policy studies from 2001 to 2005.
During his NSC stint in the Clinton administration, Steinberg earned a reputation as a hands-on manager _ and one with a short fuse. His intensity and quick temper could unsettle subordinates and make him unpopular with military and intelligence officers.
He's changed since then, friends insist.
"When he was younger he had a reputation for being a little bit on the arrogant side," said Nancy Soderberg, U.S. ambassador to the United Nations in the late 1990s. "And I've seen him really mellow over time."
A Boston native, Steinberg graduated from Harvard in 1973 at age 20. Five years later he received a law degree from Yale.