President-elect Barack Obama, announcing a “new dawn of American leadership,” presented his top national security team Monday, picking former presidential rival Hillary Rodham Clinton as secretary of state and asking Robert Gates to stay on as defense secretary.
Obama also named Eric Holder, as Attorney General, and Arizona Gov. Janet Napolitano as secretary of Homeland Security.
In two other senior foreign policy announcements, he named foreign policy adviser Susan Rice as U.N. ambassador and retired Marine Gen. James L. Jones as national security adviser.
The foreign policy team will be taking the lead on a crushing set of global challenges, including wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and the repercussions from last week’s terrorist attacks in Mumbai, India, which threaten a conflagration on the nuclear-armed subcontinent.
“The time has come for a new beginning, a new dawn of American leadership to overcome the challenges of the 21st century,” Obama said.
He said new members of his team “share my pragmatism about the use of power,” he said.
“We will strengthen our capacity to defeat our enemies and support our friends,” he said. “We will renew old alliances and forge new and enduring partnerships.”
Only a Barack Obama worshiper should be shocked at this move, and many others to come. Those, such as myself, who know his history of centrism anticipated this, and only wished that his more ardent supporters would see the light, as well. I’m glad he won; he deserved the victory; but these appointments are the derivatives of Obamamania.