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In the latest debacle for the J-1 Summer Work Travel visa, a federal indictment unsealed last week accuses the mafia of using the cultural exchange program to bring Eastern European women to work in New York strip clubs.

The U.S. House Judiciary Committee’s immigration subcommittee also has been gathering information on the J-1 visa, which was created in 1963 to allow college students from other countries to spend their summer breaks living, working and traveling in the U.S.

As the program has grown to bring more than 100,000 young people here annually, it has become as much about money as cultural understanding.

The State Department has made several changes since an Associated Press investigation last year uncovered widespread abuses, including living and working conditions that some participants compared to indentured servitude. In one of the worst cases, a woman told the AP she was beaten, raped and forced to work as a stripper in Detroit after being promised a job as a waitress in Virginia.

More common than sex trade abuses is shabby housing, scarce work hours and paltry pay. In August, dozens of workers protested conditions at a candy factory that packs Hershey chocolates in Hershey, Pa., complaining of hard physical labor and pay deductions for rent that often left them with little money.

A State Department spokesman, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said Clinton “has called for an extensive and thorough review of the program.”

“We continue to be committed to working to strengthen the Summer Work Travel Program to safeguard the health and welfare of the participants,” the official said in an email late Friday. “We have already instituted one set of reforms and are working toward additional ones that take additional measures to protect participants and prioritize the original cultural intent of the program.”

The New York case was made public just days after the State Department opened a period of public comment on proposed changes that would require companies that sponsor the participants to gather more information about employment and living arrangements.

It’s not clear if the proposed changes would have prevented the situation in New York, in which authorities say fraudulent offers for jobs as waitresses were used to help Eastern European women get visas to come to the U.S. Instead of working in restaurants, they allegedly danced in strip clubs. Authorities say members of the Gambino and Bonnano crime families were involved, along with the Russian mob.

The reforms being considered by the State Department would limit and refine the types of jobs students can have, expand the list of prohibited employment categories, and strengthen the “the cultural aspects of the program to ensure that the objective of the program – positive exposure to the United States – is accomplished.”

The agency already prohibits participants from taking jobs “that might bring the Department of State into notoriety or disrepute” but the AP found that strip clubs and adult entertainment companies openly solicited J-1 workers.

Most of the abuses in the J-1 program over the years have been blamed on unregulated, third-party labor brokers who work with the students. Critics say the students have gotten little help from companies designated as sponsors by the State Department.

The State Department said in November that it has temporarily stopped accepting any new sponsors and will limit the number of future participants to this year’s level, or about 103,000 students. The State Department also revised its rules to require more oversight by its 53 designated sponsors, which help students arrange for visas and find jobs and housing in return for a fee.

“Foreign exchange student abuse continues due to lack of oversight by State and the unadulterated greed of the exchange sponsors,” according to Danielle Grijalva, director of the Committee for Safety of Foreign Exchange Students, an advocacy group. Grijalva called on the State Department to enact a strict moratorium and impose sanctions for sponsors who fail to maintain the integrity of the program.

Under the J-1 program, foreign students are granted visas for up to four months and often land jobs at hotels, resorts and restaurants. Participation has boomed from about 20,000 students in 1996 to a peak of more than 150,000 in 2008, and roughly 1 million foreign students have taken part in the past decade. The students come from around the world, with some of the top participating countries being Russia, Brazil, Ukraine, Thailand, Ireland, Bulgaria, Peru, Moldova and Poland.

The students sometimes work as maids or groundskeepers in high-priced resorts, but they can also be found flipping burgers on the Mississippi Gulf Coast or working at fish factories in Alaska. The State Department says most participants enjoy the program and some sign up to participate more than once.

The J-1 program generates millions for the participating employers and middleman companies. The students pay fees that reach several thousand dollars for help getting visas. Businesses that hire a foreign student over an American can save 8 percent because they don’t have to pay Medicare, Social Security and unemployment taxes. Also, the foreigners must have their own health insurance.

In its own review, the AP found plentiful examples of students who made $1 an hour or less after deductions for housing, transportation and other expenses. Sometimes, labor recruiters charge students exorbitant rent for packing them into filthy, sparsely furnished apartments so crowded that some endure “hotbunking,” where they sleep in shifts.

George Collins, an inspector with the Okaloosa County Sheriff’s Department in the Florida Panhandle, has investigated abuses in the program for years, and said the State Department has done little to fix the problems, even when he has told them the names of corrupt labor brokers.

Collins said the middlemen between the sponsors and work sites should be cut out completely, the students should be better informed of their rights and sponsors who don’t comply should be fined, suspended or banned.

There also needs to be a better system for verifying compliance and checking students’ living and working conditions, perhaps through partnerships with state and local governments, he said.

“There’s an old saying that `what the boss doesn’t check doesn’t get done,’” Collins said. “The boss needs to start checking.”

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According to a recent Bloomberg poll, 34 percent of those surveyed believe things would be better in the United States if she were president.

See also: 72 Hours at the Congressional Black Caucus Convention

What more must the current secretary of state do to convince folks that she has “below zero” interest in trying to trade her foggy bottom office for the Oval Office?

Read more at the Root.

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Cries Of “Hillary Told You So” Haunt Obama Campaign

In hindsight, maybe Hillary Clinton had a point about Barack Obama during their highly contentious race for the Democratic presidential nomination.

At a campaign rally in Providence, Rhode Island, the newly demoted frontrunner sarcastically shaded Obama’s more optimistic view of our political system.

Then Sen. Clinton quipped, “Now I could stand up here and say, ‘Let’s just get everybody together. Let’s get unified.’ The sky will open. The lights will come down. Celestial choirs will be singing and everyone will know we should do the right thing and the world will be perfect!”

Read more at TheGrio

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In the year 2010, Clinton earned $10.7 million dollars for 52 speaking engagements, and reportedly earned an additional $15 million advancement for his memoir “My Life” and has more than doubled that amount in actual sales.

In the decade since he departed the Oval Office, Clinton has delivered 417 paid speeches with an average of $181, 000 per speech.

Read More At Politico.com

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TANZANIA — U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton on Saturday warned of a creeping “new colonialism” in Africa from foreign investors and governments interested only in extracting natural resources to enrich themselves.

African leaders must ensure that foreign projects are sustainable and benefit all their citizens, not only elites, she said.

Clinton did not identify any perceived culprits, but a day earlier she had urged scrutiny of China’s large investments and business interests in Africa so that the African people are not taken advantage of. She said U.S. diplomats in Africa had been asked to provide Washington with assessments of Chinese projects in the countries to which they are assigned.

“We saw that during colonial times, it is easy to come in, take out natural resources, pay off leaders and leave,” Clinton said Saturday in the Zambian capital of Lusaka before flying to Tanzania. “And when you leave, you don’t leave much behind for the people who are there. We don’t want to see a new colonialism in Africa.”

Although she didn’t mention China by name, officials traveling with Clinton said she wanted to stress that African countries should hold Chinese investors to the same standards that they apply to Americans and Europeans.

Clinton said the United States didn’t want any foreign governments or investors to fail in Africa, but wanted to make sure that they give back to local communities.

“We want them to do well, but also we want them to do good,” she said.

“We don’t want them to undermine good governance, we don’t want them to basically deal with just the top elites, and frankly too often pay for their concessions or their opportunities to invest.”

Clinton said that American development aid and public works projects come with good governance conditions and that the Obama administration is interested in Africa and its people. Their success, she said, is in everyone’s long-term interest.

Her comments, in a pan-African television interview in Lusaka, came immediately after she presided over the handover of a U.S. built pediatric hospital in Lusaka to the Zambian government. The hospital will specialize in preventing the transmission of HIV from mothers to children and Clinton announced a boost of $15 million in U.S. funding to Zambia to help fight HIV/AIDS.

Earlier, at the inaugural meeting of the U.S.-Zambia Chamber of Commerce, Clinton laid out the U.S. strategy for helping Africa.

“We want a relationship of partnership not patronage, of sustainability, not quick fixes,” she said. “We want to establish a strong foundation to attract new investment, open new businesses … create more paychecks, and do so within the context of a positive ethic of corporate responsibility.”

“We think it’s essential that we have an idea going in that doing well is not in any way a contradiction of doing good,” she said.

Clinton was the first secretary of state to visit Zambia since Henry Kissinger came in 1976 to lay out the Ford administration’s policy for southern Africa as revolts against white minority rule in South Africa and what was then Rhodesia were intensifying.

After leaving Zambia, Clinton flew to Tanzania, the second stop on a three-nation tour of Africa focused on trade, development, health and women’s empowerment. Clinton arrived in Zambia from the United Arab Emirates, where she attended an international conference on Libya. After Tanzania, she will head to Ethiopia before returning to Washington next week.

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Secretary of State Hillary Clinton announced a private partnership with the MAC cosmetics company that will expand medical and emergency support services for rape survivors in South Africa, where over 3 million people live with HIV/AIDS.

Black Voices reports:

Clinton and the cosmetics company pledged the commitment of $2 million to diminish the AIDS epidemic in South Africa over the next two years through the launch of new TCC centers and the extension of operating hours at existing clinics.

The TCC Network was launched by the South African governments with aide from the United States government to bring services, including HIV/AIDS testing, prevention, and treatment programs to women and children who are victims of sexual violence. The MAC Foundation will leverage $18.9 million that the U.S. government has committed to the program already.

The MAC AIDS FUND was founded in 1994 with the goal of supporting people living with HIV and AIDS around the world, and commits 100 percent of the sale price of Viva Glam Lipstick and Lipgloss to HIV/AIDS prevention, treatment and education.

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A Hasidic newspaper based out of Brooklyn is coming under fire on the ‘net for replacing Hillary Clinton in the now famed situation room Osama killing photo.

The paper, Der Zeitung, also scrubbed National Security Team member Audrey Tomason from the photo leaving it all male.

The caption on the official White House image explicitly states that it cannot be altered.

Read more at NYDailyNews

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Et tu, Brutè?

That’s my favorite Shakespearean quote. It’s from Julius Caesar. Caesar himself says it when, after being knifed by all the other members of the Roman senate, his homeboy, his dawg, his man likethat! Brutus, sticks a knife in.

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And you, Brutus?

After that, Caesar just goes ahead and kicks the bucket. I always thought that was the coolest way to die. If your own people can betray you, the least you can do is shame them with your death.

Of course, most people know that almost no Roman emperor left the throne without getting murked.

One of the few exceptions, Septimius Severus, was also one of the assorted African-born Roman emperors.

That’s ironic when I think that now, a man one generation removed from African soil, is probably being betrayed in the worst way since Caesar by somebody he should have known enough not to trust from the door.

Oddsmakers are already putting a line on Hillary Clinton making her own Presidential run in 2012.

Clinton has already stated that she’s finished as Secretary of State if Obama wins re-election.

That’s odd.

Yet it was Ms. Clinton in Paris two Mondays ago doing the American-sided talking to the group of nations that ended up bombing Libya.

Now, I remember my mother saying before I was even in double digits, “They only bomb brown people.”

My mother was being simplistic, even she would have admitted to this. But my mother often speaks in generalities to make a broader point.

And I don’t remember who we’d just blasted, I think it might have been Cambodia or somebody, but as if to accentuate her point, my mom started listing bombings going back to Hiroshima and Nagasaki going as far as to question who was the greater threat to mankind, Hitler or Tojo.

Of course, over time I’ve heard that it was timing that caused us to give it to the Japanese and not the Nazis.

Whatever.

One of the reasons that Hitler’s madness was respected and feared to the extent that it was, was that that fool had the nerve, well, gall, to actually bomb London!

Still, Germany got the ground troops while Japan got the nukes.

So the question becomes, is Hillary Clinton selling out a potential 2012 Barack Obama re-election by making the man look so incredibly callous as to himself “bomb brown people”?

Or is this just another instance of (me, this time) blaming the ineptitude of the Black man on the white… well, woman?

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The nation’s top diplomat also firmly said she neither has plans to mount another White House bid nor interest in other posts, such as vice president or defense secretary.

Clinton, visiting Cairo, was asked whether she would stay on in a second Obama term. She also was asked if she would like the jobs of president, vice president or defense secretary. She offered single word responses to each: “No.”

Speculation about Clinton’s future is always high and she has been mentioned as a possible successor to Defense Secretary Robert Gates, who has told Obama he is stepping down. In an interview with CNN, Clinton made clear she has no interest in running the Pentagon or repeating her 2008 presidential run.

“You know, I had a wonderful experience running and I am very proud of the support I had and very grateful for the opportunity, but I’m going to be, you know, moving on,” Clinton said.

“I am doing what I want to do right now and I have no intention or any idea even of running again. I’m going to do the best I can at this job for the next two years,” she said.

Clinton and Obama competed in 2008 for the Democratic presidential nomination. Obama bested her, won the White House and then named his one-time rival his top diplomat. Clinton immediately became one of the highest profile members of Obama’s Cabinet. She has kept a busy international schedule and has been mentioned as a possibly candidate in 2016.

“There isn’t anything that I can imagine doing after this that would be as demanding, as challenging or rewarding,” Clinton said.

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An Obama-Clinton ticket could be in the cards in 2012, Pulitzer Prize-winning political reporter Bob Woodward said Tuesday.

And in a surprise twist, Vice President Biden would take over Secretary of State Clinton’s post, keeping the Obama administration’s talent intact, Woodward told CNN.

“It’s on the table,” Woodward revealed. “Some of Hillary Clinton’s advisers see it as a real possibility in 2012.”

Read entire article at NYdailynews.com

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I’m in love with Michelle Obama and out of respect I wish Barack a long and prosperous life because if anything should happen to the brother, I’m changing my last name, becoming RK Onassis, and stepping up like, “Michelle… what’s good?”

And it’s not just because she’s a “big, fine woman” in the Juvenile sense of the expression, it’s also that she embodies all the possibilities that we’ve come to expect when we decided that Black females were Superwomen except that she’s actually made all those grandiose positive stereotypes come to life.

She makes marrying a nanny and subsequently having to cough up $750 million in the aftermath look patently absurd.

And remember when she was the fine young lawyer, already a partner in her firm, who refused to date Barack because he was a bum at the time?

Now see her as the First Lady. And make no mistake; she’s the reason that Barack is President. Without her, Mr. Obama becomes Harold Ford.

So you can imagine that it burns me to no end when, not only is Michelle Obama criticized, but she’s criticized ridiculously and unfairly.

This latest media escapade paints Mrs. Obama as “Marie Antoinette” (dig, the same Marie Antoinette that was justifiably guillotined during the French Revolution) simply because she vacationed with daughter Sasha in Spain– and looked fantastic while doing so.

Now c’mon! You bozos should have known better than to expect a stay at home mom as your First Lady since the days of Eleanor Roosevelt!

You’ve been electing co-presidents at the very least since Bill and Hillary Clinton and possibly even since John and Abigail Adams.

Her simple-minded critics seem to forget one thing: as the world’s most visible woman, Michelle Obama has all the top designers literally Kamikaze-ing themselves trying to get her to wear their creations.

She probably doesn’t pay for clothes at all except in those girly-girl moments that overtake all women when they feel the irrepressible urge to go on a quest for the perfect scarf, gloves or shoes—and maybe not even then.

The idea that the beautiful, cultured, poised, sophisticated and accomplished Michelle Obama should represent our country abroad in anything but the highest form and the grandest manner is an affront, not only to women everywhere, but indeed to these very United States of America.

Click here to view photos:

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PHOENIX – Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer said Thursday she’s angry over comments by Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton that the Obama administration will sue the state over its new immigration law.

In a June 8 media interview in Ecuador that began circulating Thursday in the U.S., Clinton said President Barack Obama thinks the federal government should determine immigration policy and that the Justice Department “will be bringing a lawsuit against the act.”

Justice spokeswoman Tracy Schmaler on Thursday declined to say whether the department would sue and that “the department continues to review the law.”

The department has been looking at the law for weeks for possible civil rights violations, with an eye toward a possible court challenge.

It’s unclear why Clinton made the comment since it’s not her area. She couldn’t be reached Thursday for comment.

State Department spokesman P.J. Crowley said Obama and Clinton have both made it clear that the administration opposes the law.

“I will defer to the Justice Department on the legal steps that are available and where they stand on the review of the law,” Crowley said. “The secretary believes that comprehensive immigration reform is a better course of action.”

Brewer, a Republican, said in a statement that “this is no way to treat the people of Arizona.”

“To learn of this lawsuit through an Ecuadorean interview with the secretary of state is just outrageous,” she said. “If our own government intends to sue our state to prevent illegal immigration enforcement, the least it can do is inform us before it informs the citizens of another nation.”

Brewer spokesman Paul Senseman said the governor was “outraged” and that Clinton’s comments make it appear that the Justice Department has decided to file suit.

“But she’s confident that in the end, the state of Arizona, the citizens, will prevail,” he said.

On April 23, Brewer signed what is considered the toughest legislation in the nation targeting illegal immigrants. It is set to go into effect July 29 pending multiple legal challenges and the Justice Department’s review.

The law requires police investigating another incident or crime to ask people about their immigration status if there’s a “reasonable suspicion” they’re in the country illegally. It also makes being in Arizona illegally a misdemeanor, and it prohibits seeking day-labor work along the state’s streets.

The law’s stated intention is to drive illegal immigrants out of Arizona and discourage them from coming in the first place. It has outraged civil rights groups, drawn criticism from Obama and led to marches and protests organized by people on both sides of the issue.

The law’s backers say Congress isn’t doing anything meaningful about illegal immigration, so it’s the state’s duty to address the issue. Critics say it will lead to racial profiling and discrimination against Hispanics, and damage ties between police and minority communities.

Brewer met with Obama in the Oval Office about the law on June 3, telling him: “We want our border secured.” Obama reiterated his objections to the law. Neither side appeared to give ground although both talked about seeking a bipartisan solution.

Other Arizona politicians, political candidates and activist groups were quick to weigh in on Clinton’s remarks. U.S. Senate candidate J.D. Hayworth, who is challenging Sen. John McCain, called them appalling; attorney general candidates Tom Horne and Andrew Thomas also denounced them.

Joanne Lin, legislative counsel for the American Civil Liberties Union, urged the administration to take swift action against the law.

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Sometimes I read the comments that are made on blogs that I’ve written and some nut inexplicably named _A_ actually made a very salient point about why current New York Governor David Paterson finds himself being assailed on all fronts.

In ignoring the logic of taking your cues from the current sitting President, Paterson looked to repay an old debt– real or imagined– and selected Clinton loyalist Kirsten Gillibrand to take the New York Senate seat vacated by Senator Hillary Clinton as opposed to following the White House mandate which decreed that he give the job to Caroline Kennedy.

This move ended up being a disaster of Jaz-O not signing with Roc-A-Fella proportions.

Not only has the little known Gillibrand done anything to suggest that she’ll be a good or even competent Senator, but after the Governor defied the President to appoint her, she was one of the first ones calling for the Governor’s resignation if the accusations of impropriety against him prove true!

Now, cutting the Governor all the slack that I’m capable of, what I imagine is that again, much like Jaz-O, Paterson’s becoming Governor before Obama became President led Paterson to believe that he did and forever would have one up on Mr. Obama.

Also like Jaz-O, who must have watched befuddled as former protege Jay-Z’s fame and success skyrocketed, Paterson must have found it nearly impossible to take orders from a guy who had just a few weeks before been a lowly Senator from Illinois.

And while i still don’t believe that any Black “leaders” including President Obama himself, had or have any right to suggest or request Governor Paterson resign for, in essence, breaking up a lover’s quarrel and watching a Yankee game with tickets that he ended up paying for, when President Obama asked the governor not to seek re-election because it was feared that Paterson would lose thereby weakening the Democratic Party, the question became did President Obama make that request while simultaneously offering Governor Paterson a job?

If President Obama did make Governor Paterson an ‘offer he couldn’t refuse‘ and Governor Paterson refused it, then David Paterson is totally brainless.

If the President simply asked that the Governor not seek re-election yet offered no other hustle through which the man could feed his family, then President Obama is totally heartless.

Tiger,

Dude, it was clear that you weren’t a player when you gave your side chicks your main cell number. Then you admitted to cheating. Why on earth did you do that? There are hit songs about never admitting to cheating! Now, even if your woman does want to stay, you’ve got to get rid of her.

If she did stay, the lesser of two evils would be that you’d lose respect for her. You’d wonder how she could know everything that she knows and still stick around. I mean, she ain’t Hillary Clinton. She ain’t running for president of Sweden in 4 years. So what’s her logic? Invariably, you’d start cheating on her again. She’s already shown that she won’t leave.

Of course, the more likely reason that she’d stay would be to light you up. Hope you didn’t have any enemies, dawg. I’ve read how you and Phil Mickelson ain’t exactly simpatico. You better hope he’s not the kind of guy that cheats on his wife. Otherwise, get used to picturing him and your wife in weird and compromising positions.

And forget about your enemies; what about your friends? I hope you don’t trust Michael Jordan farther than you can throw him! Your wife would be an upgrade over the kind of stuff I’ve seen Jordan trotting around with lately. And Barkley! Lord, please tell me that you don’t trust Charles Barkley!

Kobe Bryant’s about as simple-minded as you are and also about as talented. Don’t you remember how after Kobe got caught going backdoor commando in Colorado, his wife broke up the old Lakers by flirting with Karl Malone? You think she’s stopped flirting?

Your wife would be getting it in, my man, and here’s the worst part about that: she’d be totally justified!

And dude, the thing is; it wasn’t as if you were smart enough to have a fetish for Black girls or be secretly gay—two instances against which your wife would have been helpless. But you went after the same exact woman as your wife, again and again and again. And I’m not the biggest fan of the looks of one Ms. Elin Nordegren, but she is way hotter than all of your side-chicks. She’s gotta be furious.

The bottom line is, you should never ever ever ever cheat. But if you do and you don’t even have the decency to lie, you’ve gotta be the one to leave.

Your friend,

RK

Prominent politicians and celebrities all came out for the 2009 Clinton Global Initiative hosted by Bill & Hillary. Check out the photo gallery below to see who showed up to the event!

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Hillary Clinton has a message for the world: It’s not all about Bill.

The secretary of state bristled Monday when — as she heard it — a Congolese university student asked what her husband thought about an international financial matter.

She hadn’t traveled to Africa to talk about her husband the ex-president. But even there, she couldn’t escape his outsized shadow.

She abruptly reclaimed the stage for herself.

“My husband is not secretary of state, I am,” she snapped. “I am not going to be channeling my husband.”

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Clinton’s presence, so bold in her historic presidential candidacy against Barack Obama, has sometimes been hard to see in the months she’s served as the supposed face and voice of U.S. foreign policy.

The president’s ambitious travels have overshadowed her, heavyweight special envoys have been assigned to the world’s critical hotspots, Vice President Joe Biden has taken on assignments abroad — and then last week her husband succeeded in a North Korean mission to free two journalists even as she landed in Africa on a seven-nation trip.

“You want me to tell you what my husband thinks?” she asked incredulously when the student raised a question about a multibillion-dollar Chinese loan offer to Congo.

“If you want my opinion, I will tell you my opinion,” she said. “I am not going to be channeling my husband.”

The moderator quickly moved on.

State Department officials said the student approached Clinton afterward and told her he had meant to ask what Obama, not Bill Clinton, thought about the Chinese loan. A senior Clinton aide said that Mrs. Clinton assured the student not to worry about it.

The student’s question, according to the State Department translation, went like this: “Thank you. Mrs. Clinton, weve all heard about the Chinese contracts in this country. The interference is from the World Bank against this contract. What does Mr. Clinton think through the mouth of Mrs. Clinton and what does Mr. Mutombo think on this situation? Thank you very much.”

It was unclear whether the French-speaking student or translator had erred. Either way, she was not pleased at the mention of her husband’s name.

The Clintons have always been a complicated couple. An accomplished lawyer and politician in her own right, Hillary Rodham Clinton has struggled for decades to balance her interests and ambitions against his. She has supported his career while looking to blaze a trail of her own — at times proud of, and benefiting from, her husband’s accomplishments, and at other times frustrated by his failings and his habit of overshadowing her, friends say.

The biggest controversy of Bill Clinton’s career — an affair with a White House intern that led to impeachment proceedings — engendered rare sympathy for his wife and helped her win a Senate seat. One of his biggest political miscues — injecting race into her South Carolina primary with Obama — helped seal her defeat in the 2008 Democratic primary.

Since his presidency, Bill Clinton has spoken out about international financial and development aid to poor countries, one focus of his foundation’s Clinton Global Initiative, making his opinion of interest abroad. But the stage in Kinshasa was his wife’s, and she reacted instantly to a suggestion that he shared it.

She had been sidelined for weeks after she fell on her way to the White House in June and fractured her elbow, requiring surgery. Her aides acknowledged her frustrations stemming from the injury, which made her miss out on going to Russia with Obama and attending several European conferences.

But her aides and those in the White House have denied any rift or attempt to marginalize her.

After returning to action following her injury, Clinton made a round of TV appearances and a rousing speech — all in tune with Obama’s priorities, but in her own voice.

She then resumed her frenetic pace, traveling to India and Thailand and then to Africa.

Hours after she left Washington for Africa a week ago, news broke that Bill Clinton had gone on a humanitarian mission to North Korea to win the release of Laura Ling and Euna Lee, two television journalists who had been arrested and sentenced to 12 years at hard labor.

She arrived in Kenya to find herself peppered with questions about his secret mission.

Clinton quickly recovered her cool Monday and moved on to other subjects. Just before the question that set off her anger, another student had asked if the U.S. and the West felt a need to apologize to the people of Congo for colonialism and postcolonial interference.

That brought a pointed rebuttal as well.

“I cannot excuse the past and I will not try,” she said. “We can either think about the past and be imprisoned by it or we can decide we’re going to have a better future and work to make it.”

U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton promoted democracy in the war-devastated country of Congo on Monday and drew attention to an epidemic of sexual assaults in its violence-torn east.

While in the Congolese capital, Clinton will visit a hospital founded by former NBA star Dikembe Mutumbo, a native of Congo, and will hold a town hall meeting.

On Tuesday, she plans to go to Goma where she will meet victims of horrific rapes and other sexual crimes committed by the military and rebel groups, many of which are fighting over the region’s vast mineral wealth.

Clinton said in Kenya last week that she insisted on visiting Goma despite her staff’s security concerns “to speak out against the unspeakable violence against women and girls in eastern Congo. It is the worst example of man’s inhumanity to women and women are being used in conflicts.”

On Monday, she told reporters traveling with her that she also wants to look at ways “to prevent the mining from basically funding a lot of these militias that are keeping the fighting going with all the attendant human rights abuses.”

The United Nations has recorded at least 200,000 cases of sexual violence in eastern Congo since conflict erupted in 1996, at its height drawing in a half dozen of the country’s neighbors, each greedy for a share of the region’s rich mineral resources.

A 2003 peace deal reduced the fighting but both the army and rebel groups continue to attack villages and kill civilians.

More than 5 million have been killed and hundreds of thousands left homeless over the past decade, with brutalities commonplace in rural communities, including gang rapes, that have led to unwanted pregnancies, serious injuries and death to tens of thousands of women and girls.

Earlier this month a leading human rights group demanded that Congo crack down on rampant sexual violence perpetrated by military generals and other top officers.

Citing U.N. data that show 7,703 cases of sexual violence by the army reported last year, Human Rights Watch said the Congolese authorities have failed to prevent the attacks, most of which were on adolescent girls.

The group called on the U.N. Security Council to take “tough measures,” including travel bans, and other sanctions against individuals or governments that commit or condone sexual violence in Congo and elsewhere.

On Friday, U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon called for global action to stop government forces and armed groups from using sexual violence “like a grenade or a gun” to pursue their goals, including in Congo, Chad, Sudan, Burundi, Liberia and Sierra Leone.

Clinton’s Congo stop is the latest in an 11-day journey through Africa to promote development and good governance and underscore the Obama administration’s commitment to the world’s poorest continent.

She arrived in Congo from Angola, South Africa and Kenya. She will also visit Nigeria, Liberia and Cape Verde.

A Kenyan man’s offer of 40 goats and 20 cows for Chelsea Clinton’s hand in marriage may still be on the table – and Hillary Rodham Clinton has promised to convey the “very kind offer” to her daughter.

To laughter at a town hall meeting Thursday in Kenya, CNN’s Fareed Zakaria asked the U.S. Secretary of State if the Clintons had made a decision on the dowry offer. In 2000, a Kenyan man wrote to then-president Bill Clinton offering the animals in accordance with African tradition.

After a pause, Clinton said, “My daughter is her own person, very independent, so I will convey this very kind offer.”

Clinton has denied rumors that her daughter, 29, is planning to get married this summer.

From the New York Times:

NAIROBI, Kenya — Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton had two messages for Kenya on Wednesday: Trade is good. Impunity from prosecution is bad.

After addressing a major United States-Africa trade conference, Mrs. Clinton shifted her focus to a far touchier subject: Kenya’s volatile politics.

Despite strong pressure from its own citizens and Western donors, the Kenyan government has refused to set up a special tribunal to try the perpetrators of last year’s election-driven bloodshed, which killed more than 1,000 people.

Many people now fear that, as in the past, the Kenyan government will take no action.

“We are waiting, we are disappointed,” Mrs. Clinton told a news conference.

She reminded Kenyans of how the United States played a large role in brokering a peace treaty last year between Kenya’s warring political parties but said that “unfortunately, resolving that crisis has not yet translated into the kind of politic process the Kenyan people deserve.”

Click here to read more.

From Politico:

Michelle Obama wants a bigger role in her husband’s administration, according to The Washington Post. Unlike Laura Bush, who focused on a few peripheral issues, Obama wants a seat at the table when key policies are made.

Obama’s new chief of staff, Susan Sher, is part of the crucial 8:15 a.m. White House staff meeting. The first lady’s team of more than 20 has been told to think “strategically” about how to make her a player on policies she cares about.

This could be a very bad idea.

Click here for the full story.

THE HAGUE, Netherlands — The phrase “global war on terror” is finished, at least as far as U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton is concerned.

The top U.S. diplomat told reporters Tuesday that the Obama administration has quit using that line to describe the effort to fight terrorism around the world.

“The administration has stopped using the phrase and I think that speaks for itself,” Clinton said.

Clinton spoke as she headed to Europe for a week of diplomatic meetings. The phrase “war on terror” is widely disliked in Europe and elsewhere overseas, where even close U.S. allies suggested it was overly militaristic and perhaps counterproductive.

It is also now associated with a range of Bush administration policies such as harsh interrogation practices that President Barack Obama has pledged to abandon.

Clinton was asked about the phrase as she headed to Europe for a week of diplomatic meetings.

Pundits have noted the absence of the “war on terror” language, but top administration figures have had little to say on the subject before now.

“I haven’t heard it used. I haven’t gotten any directive about using it or not using it, it’s just not being used,” Clinton said.

Then-President George W. Bush used the phrase as a rallying cry after the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks.

GUNS AND DRUGS: HOW US POLICIES ARE DESTROYING MEXICO AND THE HOOD

U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton said Wednesday that America’s “insatiable” demand for illegal drugs and inability to stop weapons smuggling into Mexico are fueling an alarming spike in violence along the U.S.-Mexican border.

Clinton said the United States shares responsibility with Mexico for dealing with the violence. She said the administration will work with Mexican authorities to improve security on both sides of the border.

“Our insatiable demand for illegal drugs fuels the drug trade,” she said. “Our inability to prevent weapons from being illegally smuggled across the border to arm these criminals causes the deaths of police officers, soldiers and civilians.”

IS THE US FUELING MEXICO’S DRUG WAR?

“I feel very strongly we have a co-responsibility,” she told reporters accompanying her to Mexico City a day after the Obama administration said it would send more money, technology and manpower to secure the United States’ Southwestern frontier and help Mexico battle the cartels.

Obama himself said Tuesday that he wanted the U.S. to do more to prevent guns and cash from illicit drug sales from flowing across the border into Mexico.

“That’s part of what’s financing their operations. That’s part of what’s arming them. That’s what makes them so dangerous,” he told a news conference. “And this is something that we take very seriously and we’re going to continue to work on diligently in the months to come.”

Clinton’s remarks, delivered ahead of her arrival in Mexico City, appeared more forceful in recognizing the U.S. share of the blame. Mexican officials have in the past, particularly under the Bush administration, complained that Washington never acknowledged the extent that the U.S. demand for drugs and weapons smuggling played in fueling the violence.

“These criminals are outgunning the law enforcement officials,” she said, referring to guns and military-style equipment like night vision goggles and body armor that the cartels are smuggling into Mexico from the United States.

60 Minutes Covers The Role of US Guns in the Mexican Drug War
“Clearly, what we have been doing has not worked and it is unfair for our incapacity … to be creating a situation where people are holding the Mexican government and people responsible,” Clinton said. “That’s not right.”

She said she would repeat her acknowledgment as loudly and as often as needed during her two-day visit to Mexico City and Monterrey during which she will brief Mexican officials on the administration’s plans for the border and counter-narcotics aid to Mexico.

The administration announced Tuesday that it would increase the number of immigrations and customs agents, drug agents and antigun-trafficking agents operating along the border. It will also send more U.S. officials to work inside Mexico.

In addition, it will allow federal funds to be used to pay for local law enforcement involved in Southwestern border operations and, at the same time, U.S. prosecutors will boost efforts to go after those smuggling guns and drug profits from the U.S. into Mexico.

The measures fall short of calls from some Southwestern states that troops be deployed to prevent further spillover of the violence, which has surged since Mexican President Felipe Calderon stepped up his government’s battle against the cartels.

“If the steps that we’ve taken do not get the job done, then we will do more,” Obama said.

In her discussions, Clinton plans to stress Obama’s commitment and encourage Calderon and his top aides to boost efforts to combat rampant corruption by promoting police and judicial reform, according to senior U.S. officials.

U.S. help for such projects has already begun under a three-year, $1.4-billion-dollar Bush administration-era program known as the Merida Initiative through which Congress already has approved $700 million to support Mexico’s efforts to fight the cartels.

Clinton’s visit is among several high-level meetings on the matter. Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano and Attorney General Eric Holder are to meet with Mexican officials in early April before Obama is expected in Mexico ahead of the Summit of the Americas in Trinidad and Tobago.

VIDEO: Inside the Mexican Drug War

Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton set out for Mexico Wednesday to pursue a broad diplomatic agenda that will be overshadowed by spiraling drug violence and fears of greater cross-border spillover.

A day after the Obama administration announced it would send more money, technology and manpower to secure the United States’ Southwestern frontier and help Mexican authorities in their battle against drug cartels, Clinton was to depart on a two-day trip to Mexico City and Monterrey aimed at bolstering anti-narcotics cooperation.

Guns and Drugs: How US Policies Affect Mexico and the Hood

U.S. officials say they do not want relations with Mexico to be dominated by the violence, which has spread from the border region on the Mexican side into some U.S. border states. The officials maintain that Clinton also wants to discuss trade, climate change and the global financial crisis in her meetings.

Among the contentious issues are new Mexican tariffs on 89 U.S. products imposed last week in retaliation for a U.S. decision to cancel a cross-border program that gave Mexican truckers access to U.S. highways. Mexico’s move could affect about $2.4 billion in annual trade.

Yet U.S. officials acknowledge that the violence between Mexican President Felipe Calderon’s government and the cartels, along with bloody turf battles among the traffickers, are the most urgent issues the two countries face. Clinton’s talks are designed in part to encourage Mexican authorities to do more in response to the stepped-up U.S. effort, they say.

The escalating violence has set off alarm bells in the U.S. and triggered a State Department travel alert last month that compared recent confrontations between Mexican authorities and the cartels to “small-unit combat.” Mexican officials say the violence killed 6,290 people last year and more than 1,000 in the first eight weeks of 2009.

It has also led to a spate of kidnappings and home invasions in some Southwestern U.S. cities, prompting calls from state and local officials for troops to be sent to the border.

Clinton’s trip marks the start of several high-level meetings on the matter. Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano and Attorney General Eric Holder are to meet with Mexican officials in early April before President Barack Obama is expected to visit Mexico ahead of the Summit of the Americas in Trinidad and Tobago.

On Tuesday, the Obama administration rolled out a multi-agency plan to protect the border, including the deployment of nearly 500 federal agents and support personnel, building on efforts begun during the Bush administration. However, officials did not say where the additional agents would come from or how long they would stay in their new assignments.

“If the steps that we’ve taken do not get the job done, then we will do more,” Obama said Tuesday during a prime-time news conference.

Obama said the U.S. needs to do more to prevent guns and cash from flowing back to the cartels.

“That’s part of what’s financing their operations. That’s part of what’s arming them. That’s what makes them so dangerous,” he said. “And this is something that we take very seriously and we’re going to continue to work on diligently in the months to come.”

Texas Gov. Rick Perry last month asked for 1,000 troops be sent to bolster border security in his state. Napolitano said Tuesday officials were still considering whether to station National Guard troops along the Arizona and Texas borders with Mexico, which some governors have requested.

In addition, officials said they will increase the number of immigrations and customs agents, drug agents and antigun-trafficking agents operating along the border. The government also will allow federal funds to be used to pay for local law enforcement involved in Southwestern border operations and send more U.S. officials to work inside Mexico.

At the same time, U.S. prosecutors say they will boost efforts to go after those smuggling guns and drug profits from the U.S. into Mexico, and allowed that the problem was not only one of supply, but of demand for illicit narcotics in America.

Those steps come in addition to a three-year, $1.4-billion-dollar Bush administration-era program known as the Merida Initiative through which Congress already has approved $700 million to support Mexico’s efforts to fight the cartels. Obama has said he wants to revamp the initiative.

U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton proposed on Thursday a high-level international conference on Afghanistan to be sponsored by the United Nations and attended by a wide range of countries including Pakistan and possibly Iran.

Clinton presented the proposal at a NATO foreign ministers meeting where she said the session could be held March 31 and led by the U.N.’s special representative for Afghanistan, Kai Eide of Norway, who was appointed to improve coordination of international civilian assistance to Kabul.

She said discussions were under way with the U.N. on possibly having U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon open the conference.

“We hope that this meeting could provide an opportunity to reach a common set of principles, perhaps embodied in a chairman’s statement, on a common way forward,” she said, according to a prepared text released by her staff.

At a news conference later, Clinton said: “It is expected that Iran would be invited as a neighbor of Afghanistan.”

She described the conference as “a way to bring all the stakeholders and interested parties together” while stressing that it so far is only a proposal.

NATO Secretary General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer told a news conference that the proposed conference could be seen as a “big tent meeting” that would include a wide range of parties with an interest in stabilizing Afghanistan and preventing it from again serving as a haven for al-Qaida.

Clinton said that Afghanistan and Pakistan should attend the conference, along with NATO allies and those countries that have troops in Afghanistan. Without citing others by name, Clinton also proposed having in attendance “key regional and strategic countries,” which appeared to mean Russia, India and possibly others, plus “major financial contributors and relevant international organizations.”

Robert Wood, the State Department spokesman traveling with Clinton, said, “I would expect that Iran would be invited.” That adds a new dimension to international diplomatic efforts in Afghanistan, which until now have had limited contributions from Iran.

Reaction to her proposal from other NATO foreign ministers was not immediately known.

The war effort in Afghanistan has deteriorated the past two years as the Taliban and extremist insurgency has gained strength and U.S. and allied casualties have increased. President Barack Obama has approved sending an additional 17,000 U.S. troops to Afghanistan this spring and summer, but he also has emphasized the need to have a broader, unified international approach to the conflict.

Gov. David Paterson has picked Democratic U.S. Rep. Kirsten Gillibrand to fill New York‘s vacant U.S. Senate seat, an aide to the governor said early Friday, a day after Caroline Kennedy abruptly withdrew from consideration.

Gillibrand, a second-term lawmaker from upstate New York, will be named to fill the seat vacated when Hillary Rodham Clinton resigned to become secretary of state in the Obama administration, the aide said, speaking on condition of anonymity because an announcement hadn’t been made. An announcement was scheduled for later Friday.

Gillibrand’s office didn’t immediately return a call seeking comment.

She was considered one of the top contenders in Paterson’s selection process, along with Kennedy and state Attorney General Andrew Cuomo.

Paterson’s appointment lasts until 2010, when a special election will be held to fill the final two years of Clinton’s term.

Kennedy, the daughter of the late President John F. Kennedy, called the governor around midday Wednesday and told him she was having second thoughts about the job, according to a person close to Paterson, who said she later decided to remain in contention, only to announce her withdrawal early Thursday in an e-mail.

Others in the field, led by more senior politicians, including U.S. Rep. Carolyn McCarthy, criticized Gillibrand as recently as Thursday evening, saying her support of more conservative issues such as gun ownership rights was out of step with most New York Democrats.

But Gillibrand (JIL’-uh-brand) is a proven vote-getter in an eastern New York district that sprawls from the mid-Hudson Valley to north of Albany. She defeated a long-term Republican incumbent in 2006 and won re-election last year by a wide margin.

“Gender plus geography equals Gillibrand,” said Doug Muzzio, a political science professor at Baruch College. He said her upstate base would help Paterson’s 2010 ticket, which otherwise would be dominated by New York City residents like himself.

Gillibrand, 42, becomes the only woman on a ticket that will include Paterson, Cuomo and Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli.

The pick came after a week in which Kennedy surprisingly withdrew from consideration and Paterson revealed he was considering Cuomo, who had refused to publicly express his interest. In the end, Paterson chose the up-and-comer over more established names.

Gillibrand was an official in the Housing and Urban Development Department during the administration of former President Bill Clinton. She worked as a lawyer before challenging Republican John Sweeney in 2006 to represent New York‘s 20th District. Her upset win came after a police report showing that Sweeney’s wife had called 911 in what appeared to be a domestic violence incident was leaked shortly before the election.

In November, Gillibrand defeated wealthy General Electric heir Sandy Treadwell. The former state Republican chairman was seen as one of the GOP‘s best chances to capture a congressional seat in New York.

Gillibrand is considered one of the fiscally conservative Blue Dog Democrats, a stance that reflects her largely rural district. She voted last year against the $700 billion Wall Street bailout bill.

Gillibrand graduated from Dartmouth College in 1988 and earned a law degree at UCLA in 1991. She is the daughter of Albany lobbyist Douglas Rutnik.

Kennedy made the announcement in a terse statement released early Thursday, ending hours of uncertainty surrounding her intentions as she appeared to waver in her decision to seek the office.

“I informed Governor Paterson today that for personal reasons I am withdrawing my name from consideration for the United States Senate,” she said in the one-sentence statement.

Her spokesman, Stefan Friedman, wouldn’t comment further. A spokesman for Gov. David Paterson, who will make the appointment to the open seat, also would not comment.

The U.S. Senate seat was once held by Kennedy’s slain uncle, Bobby Kennedy, and her initial announcement that she wanted to be considered was met with both excitement from supporters and skepticism from those who maintained that she was simply trading on her famous name to get into public office.

Her uncle, Sen. Edward Kennedy, suffered a seizure Tuesday at the inauguration of President Barack Obama. The veteran lawmaker has been treated for an aggressive brain tumor.

The New York Times cited a source it didn’t identify as saying his niece withdrew out of concern for her uncle and his illness. But the New York Post, which was the first to report his niece’s withdrawal from the Senate contest, cited an unidentified source as saying she dropped out because she learned Paterson had decided not to choose her.

The Associated Press initially reported Kennedy had withdrawn from the race Wednesday evening, but corrected the story about an hour later after the person who gave that information said it was an error. Kennedy later issued her statement saying that she would withdraw, hours after Clinton became head of the U.S. State Department.

Kennedy’s decision boosted the chances of several other candidates, including Attorney General Andrew Cuomo, who surpassed Kennedy in statewide polls last week.

Paterson said Cuomo had outstanding credentials for the job. Cuomo was the housing secretary under President Bill Clinton. Cuomo was elected attorney general in 2006 and has since led national reforms in the student loan industry and had a role in reining in corporate spending on Wall Street.

Cuomo is also the most popular elected politician in New York in polls — higher than Paterson, whose approval rating, while still high, has been slipping.

Paterson has asked potential candidates to respond to a 28-page questionnaires. The forms ask about personal finances and other background issues, many of which Kennedy has long shielded from the public.

Kennedy, an author, lawyer and fundraiser for New York City schools, has long guarded her privacy, and the questionnaires were expected to include some closely guarded Kennedy financial data. Paterson had said he thought the candidates’ responses would be confidential because it was his personal request that they fill them out.

But the state’s open-government expert and good-government groups told the AP that once the forms were written and submitted to the governor at least some of the responses would be subject to public review under the state Freedom of Information Law.

Kennedy jumped to the top of statewide polls in early December, but her public support waned following a brief upstate tour and a few press interviews.

She was criticized as reluctant to answer questions, and her knowledge of New York and its issues were suspect. She was also mocked nationwide for her frequent use of “you know” and “um” in interviews and was branded a lackluster campaigner.

In addition to Cuomo, other contenders include Reps. Carolyn Maloney, of New York City, and Steve Israel, of Long Island, along with a strong upstate candidate, Rep. Kirsten Gillibrand, whose district runs along the Hudson Valley. Other hopefuls among the 10 or 20 Paterson said were under consideration include U.S. Reps. Jerrold Nadler and Brian Higgins and Buffalo Mayor Byron Brown.

The Kennedy reports came hours after Maloney, some Democrats’ top choice, was named chair of the Joint Economic Committee in Congress. That’s a significant move because Paterson had made it clear the next senator’s top job should be to help land a federal stimulus package to help New York out of its historic fiscal crisis.

WASHINGTON, DC — The Senate has confirmed Hillary Rodham Clinton to become secretary of state.

The Senate vote was overwhelmingly in favor of the former first lady despite lingering concerns by some Republicans that her husband’s charitable fundraising overseas could pose a conflict of interest.

Republicans and Democrat alike say her swift confirmation was necessary so that President Barack Obama could begin tackling the major foreign policy issues at hand, including two wars, increased violence in the Middle East and the threat of a nuclear-armed Iran.

Immediately after the vote, Clinton was to be sworn in during a private ceremony at the Capitol.

Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton, President-elect Barack Obama’s nominee for secretary of state, appears today before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. The Op-Ed page asked 10 experts to pose the questions they would like to hear Senator Clinton answer.

1. United States policy has failed with respect to Israeli-Palestinian peace. The reluctance of any American president to act as an honest broker in the process, rather than as a strong, unquestioning friend of Israel, has contributed to this failure. How do you propose to bring success to the peace process?

2. There is clearly an imbalance of influence and power between the State Department and the Defense Department. An enormous shift of foreign policy influence has also occurred, since the era of Richard Nixon and Henry Kissinger, from the State Department to the National Security Council staff and its head, the national security adviser. How do you propose to bring some of that influence back to the State Department?

— LAWRENCE B. WILKERSON, chief of staff to Secretary of State Colin Powell from 2002 to 2005

1. Does it benefit American security to have more liberal democracies in the world? If so, what steps would you take to advance this trend?

2. Do you believe that NATO enlargement has contributed to American security and moved former Soviet states toward greater democracy and regional cooperation?

— MIKHEIL SAAKASHVILI, the president of Georgia

1. Some say “war on terror” is a misnomer that has led our policy astray. They argue that terrorism is a tactic, not an ideology or a cause, and that a war against it is bound to be ill focused and inconclusive. Do you think we should drop the term “war on terror,” and describe our policy more precisely as a war to defeat Al Qaeda and violent Islamic extremism?

2. In the Middle East, we see a paradox: Countries with pro-American governments like Egypt, Jordan and Saudi Arabia have populations with high levels of anti-American sentiment. Meanwhile in Iran, whose government is hostile to the United States, public opinion of America is more favorable. How do you explain this, and what can we learn from it? Should the United States disentangle itself from autocratic regimes in Saudi Arabia and Egypt?

3. One of the most damaging legacies of the Iraq war is that it has given idealism and internationalism a bad name. How will you persuade the American people, and the world, that the United States can be a force for democracy and freedom?

— MICHAEL SANDEL, a professor of government at Harvard

Click here for the full post.

Addressing her Senate confirmation hearing, Clinton also promised to push for stronger U.S. alliances around the globe.

“We must build a world with more partners and fewer adversaries,” said the woman that President-elect Barack Obama took for his administration’s leading diplomatic job.

“America cannot solve the most pressing problems on our own,” Clinton said, “and the world cannot solve them without America.”

Borrowing a phrase meant to signal a move away from the militarization of U.S. foreign policy, Clinton said, “We must use what has been called `smart power,’ the full range of tools at our disposal,” she said. “With `smart power,’ diplomacy will be the vanguard of foreign policy.”

She credited Secretary of Defense Robert Gates with stimulating debate about the role of diplomacy and other civilian institutions’ role in fighting the global war on terror, endorsing his call for providing the State Department with more resources and a bigger budget.

She assured the committee that if confirmed, the State Department “will be firing on all cylinders” — applying pressure when needed and looking for opportunities to advancing U.S. interests.

Clinton, with daughter Chelsea in attendance, appeared set to sail smoothly through her hearing before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, despite concerns among some lawmakers that the global fundraising of her husband, former President Bill Clinton, could pose ethical conflicts for her as secretary of state. Her husband was not present at the hearing.

Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass., chairman of the committee, said in opening the hearing that he welcomed Clinton’s nomination, calling her “extraordinarily capable and smart.”

In his opening remarks, Sen. Richard Lugar, the panel’s ranking Republican, praised Clinton, calling her “the epitome of a big leaguer” who is fully qualified for the job and whose presence at the State Department could open new opportunities for American diplomacy, including the possibility of improving the United States’ image in the world.

But Lugar also raised questions about the issue of Bill Clinton‘s fundraising work and its relation to her wife’s new post. Lugar said that the only way for Clinton to avoid a potential conflict of interest due to her husband’s charity is to forswear any new foreign contributions. The Indiana senator said the situation poses a “unique complication” that requires “great care and transparency.”

“The Clinton Foundation exists as a temptation for any foreign entity or government that believes it could curry favor through a donation,” he said. “It also sets up potential perception problems with any action taken by the secretary of state in relation to foreign givers or their countries.”

However, Lugar indicated that he would accept the alternative approach proposed by Clinton and the Obama transition team. Lugar said their plan — which relies on State Department ethics officials to review the donations — would be more complex and require stringent oversight.

It should be considered the minimum standard to ensure overseas donations do not propose a conflict of interest for Clinton as the nation’s top diplomat.

“We should be clear that this agreement is a beginning, not an end,” Lugar said. “It is not a guarantee against conflict of interest or its appearance. For the agreement to succeed, the parties must make the integrity of U.S. foreign policy their first principle of implementation.”

From the moment it became known that Obama was considering nominating Clinton, questions arose about her husband’s charitable work and whether it might pose a conflict of interest for her as secretary of state.

Lawmakers have asked for more details on an agreement she and Obama worked out after the election. As outlined in a Jan. 5 letter from the former president’s lawyer, ethics officials at the State Department will be allowed to review overseas contributions made to Bill Clinton‘s charity. The State Department also will be able to assess in advance the former president’s consulting work and speaking engagements.

The committee could vote on Clinton’s nomination as early as Thursday. If she is approved, as expected, Clinton could be confirmed by the full Senate as early as Inauguration Day.

In advance of the hearing, Hillary Clinton reached out to individual senators through telephone calls and face-to-face meetings, including an hourlong session with Lugar.

On Monday night, outgoing Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and national security adviser Stephen Hadley hosted a dinner for Clinton and Hadley’s successor, retired Gen. James Jones, at the State Department, officials said.

Clinton, 61, intended to emphasize areas of foreign policy in which she and Obama think alike, including their conviction that in order to make gains abroad the United States needs to strengthen its domestic economy, the official said.

Republicans are not expected to try to block the nomination and have even been generous in their praise of Clinton.

Sen. Jim DeMint, R-S.C., a member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, said Clinton expresses herself well and won’t make any “rookie mistakes.”

Clinton, who entered the Democratic presidential primary race as the front-runner but lost to Obama, is primed to take over a State Department wrestling with a vast array of diplomatic challenges, from the crisis in Gaza and stalled peace efforts in the Middle East to nuclear worries in south Asia.

In significant respects, the Clinton and Obama views on foreign policy are compatible.

Like Obama, Clinton has said the U.S. should make a more focused commitment to stabilizing Afghanistan and pushing Pakistan to eliminate the havens al-Qaida terrorists have found on its territory.

Both favor closing the prison for terrorist suspects at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. Both support the continued expansion of the Army and the Marine Corps, and they share the view that the Bush administration undervalued international diplomacy.

Carlos Pascual, vice president and director of foreign policy at the Brookings Institution, a Washington think tank, said in an interview Monday that Obama and Clinton both look at key issues in their global context — the spread of nuclear know-how and materials, the wide impact of economic reversals, the international reach of terrorist networks and the transnational impact of disease and poverty.

The Senate is also holding four confirmation hearings Tuesday for other Obama choices for Cabinet and top White House positions. Appearing will be Peter Orszag, his choice to head the Office of Management and Budget, and Robert Nabors II, for deputy director of OMB; New York housing official Shaun Donovan, to be secretary of housing and urban development; Steven Chu, to head the Energy Department; and Arne Duncan, as education secretary.

When President-elect Barack Obama began naming his Cabinet members, we paid much respect to his practical, middle-of-the-road choices. The wisdom of his choices was proven by his ability to look at rivals, old guard veterans, and unpopular figures. After exchanging unpleasant words with Hillary Clinton through the primary, he named her Secretary of State. Arne Duncan, who helped to reform Chicago schools, is accused of being too middling, hardly choosing sides in any debate. But on the other side, Susan E. Rice is viewed as a stubborn up and comer. She will only accept opposing views once she has set her terms. 

The interesting common theme among Barack Obama’s Cabinet members is their love of basketball. Duncan played overseas for a year after college. Susan E. Rice was the point guard of her high school basketball team. Barack Obama has shown his skills in various clips taped on the campaign trail. He and Duncan played one-on-one on Election Night. It begs the question: Does Obama’s basketball savvy help him to make balanced decisions? 

Spot by spot, we’ll analyze his strategy. 

• Susan Rice, Point Guard – The PG has to look at the whole court [the globe], and decide how to stake her claim against resistance. Rice’s unforgiving attitude is perfect for the player who begins with the ball. The United States has taken a strong moral stance in its foreign relations, sometimes for the worst. Rice must measure her tendency to grunt her way through disagreement, and find ways to give the ball up when it matters. She has to see the United Nations as teammates, not opponents.  
• Hillary Clinton, Shooting Guard – Michael Jordan and Kobe Bryant play shooting guard because they can score. They make the defense bend to their best efforts. Hillary Clinton can make key decisions, command the attention of her enemy, and then surprise all with the outcome. Not capturing the presidency was a loss, but the battle was won. She scored the Secretary of State seat and remained one of the most powerful people in the world. These tactical wins define her in her career. 
• Barack Obama, Small Forward – Think of the small forward as the hinge on a door. The other players rotate around him as he maneuvers the center and sides of the court. Barack Obama is a small forward with dexterity, a killer jump shot, and the ability to finish difficult baskets in a crowd. He also knows how to move the ball around between his teammates, so that the whole gameplan revolves around unity of theme. He fits on any team because his individual talents make him a standout, but he’s never going to overlook open teammates. Barack Obama is like Grant Hill or Lebron James because he’s versatile, but still aggressive. 
• Arne Duncan, Power Forward – The power forward makes the plays easier for everyone else when he organizes from his position. By grabbing rebounds and defending the basket area, he sets the standard for strong shots versus weak ones. Arne Duncan will have to make responsible choices for the school system to maintain its recovery in the urban centers of the U.S. He will also have to do the dirty work of relieving people who are failing their students to indefinite dismissal. Duncan’s personality is a bit soft for the position, but education is a frontier that will be at the top of the Obama agenda. 
• Robert Gates, Center – Like the point guard, the center has to control the ball movement from the area near the basket. He also has to defend against attacks from the opposing team. Gates was one of the custodians of the Iraq War under President Bush. He demanded more troops when forces were stretched thin, and he advocated for more of the counter-insurgency work to be delegated on the outskirts of Baghdad, where many of the small brigades of rebels had caused carnage. Everything has to begin and end with the center on a good basketball team. If Obama wants to end the war as he said, “cautiously,” he will need to defer to Gates’s judgment, and Secretary Clinton’s recommendations. 

Bench Players: Eric Holder, Attorney General – Holder will have the fun job of restoring the Justice Department to form after the Patriot Act challenged many basic civil rights in order to pursue terrorists. Holder is a natural basketball player, with smooth moves to reach the goal. With the backing of the exec branch, he should have no problem repairing the damage done by crooked judges and an overzealous Dick Cheney and friends. Lisa Jackson is the Environmental Protection Agency chair and comes in with a specific mandate to reduce emissions, which is tricky because detractors claim her record in New Jersey was not one of reform. She’ll be pressed to come to the table with unique solutions for our ozone issues, and energy-saving vehicles.

The proposed team will not mesh all the time, with talent at every position vying for the number one label. Regardless of how egos will mesh, the player-coach we have as a President-elect will look to make the decisive shots in the clutch and overtime.

From ForeignPolicy.com:

#1: “If [Hillary Clinton] gets a race against John Edwards and Barack Obama, she’s going to be the nominee. Gore is the only threat to her, then. … Barack Obama is not going to beat Hillary Clinton in a single Democratic primary. I’ll predict that right now.” —William Kristol, Fox News Sunday, Dec. 17, 2006

Weekly Standard editor and New York Times columnist William Kristol was hardly alone in thinking that the Democratic primary was Clinton’s to lose, but it takes a special kind of self-confidence to make a declaration this sweeping more than a year before the first Iowa caucus was held. After Iowa, Kristol lurched to the other extreme, declaring that Clinton would lose New Hampshire and that “There will be no Clinton Restoration.” It’s also worth pointing out that this second wildly premature prediction was made in a Times column titled, “President Mike Huckabee?” The Times is currently rumored to be looking for his replacement.

#2: “Peter writes: ‘Should I be worried about Bear Stearns in terms of liquidity and get my money out of there?’ No! No! No! Bear Stearns is fine! Do not take your money out. … Bear Stearns is not in trouble. I mean, if anything they’re more likely to be taken over. Don’t move your money from Bear! That’s just being silly! Don’t be silly!” —Jim Cramer, responding to a viewer’s e-mail on CNBC’s Mad Money, March 11, 2008

Hopefully, Peter got a second opinion. Six days after the volatile CNBC host made his emphatic pronouncement, Bear Stearns faced the modern equivalent of an old-fashioned bank run. Amid widespread speculation on Wall Street about the bank’s massive exposure to subprime mortgages, Bear’s shares lost 90 percent of their value and the investment bank was sold for a pittance to JPMorgan Chase, with a last-minute assist from the U.S. Federal Reserve.

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For the record, Jesse Jackson, Jr. did not offer a million dollars for Obama’s Senate seat. If the Blagojevich phone calls are indicative of Jackson’s position, he (or an emissary) offered to help raise a million dollars for Blagojevich’s campaign. How is this worse than any of the rich donors who give and raise money for a Presidential candidate and are rewarded with cabinet or ambassador positions?

Do we really think Hillary Clinton was Barack Obama’s first choice for Secretary of State? There was obviously a deal between them in which she would campaign for him and urge her donors to give money to him in return for the position. Did she do so out of the kindness of her own heart? I doubt it. My guess would be that Hillary and Barack had a meeting after the primaries, either directly or through surrogates

The practice of rewarding people who raise cash for campaigns with high-level positions is as American as apple pie. Of the 661 people who raised more than $100,000 for George Bush in 2004, two became cabinet secretaries, 27 became ambassadors and 48 became transition team members. That means 23 percent of all big donors were given government positions. 104 companies that employed 127 elite donors for Bush ($100K or more) in 2000 were given $88 billion in funds in 2002.

Campaign donations in return for political favors are a part of the American political system. Bill Clinton pardoned Mark Rich after his wife donated large amounts to his campaign. The whole way campaigns are run in the U.S. is based on people being rewarded for fundraising in one way or another.

If politicians can trade pardons, cabinet positions, government contracts, and political access for campaign fundraising, why not temporary Senate seats? What happened between Jackson and Blagojevich is indicative of backroom dealings that go on between politicians all the time. Blagojevich just happened to get caught on tape. How many politicians are rewarded with lobbyist positions after their political careers are over?  Aren’t they in fact getting paid retroactively for their services?

The Blagojevich scandal is representative of the American political system in which money is more important than qualifications or merit. If we are going to crucify Jesse Jackson, Jr., we should also crucify the outdated campaign finance system and the way business is done in politics.

The first sign of cracks in President-elect Barack Obama’s foreign policy team of rivals emerged on Monday as his choices for secretary of state and U.S. ambassador to the United Nations visited the State Department.

As Secretary of State-pick Hillary Rodham Clinton and U.N. envoy-choice Susan Rice separately visited the diplomatic agency’s headquarters in Washington’s Foggy Bottom neighborhood, persons familiar with the transition said that Rice wants to install her own transition team inside the department.

Such a move by an incoming U.N. ambassador is rare, if not unprecedented, because the job is based at the United Nations in New York, where Rice already has a small transition staff, the sources familiar with the incoming administration.

The push by Rice, an early Obama supporter whose position the President-elect wants to elevate to a cabinet post, is also a signal that she intends to use her influence with the new president to play a more significant role than previous U.N. envoys, they said. The transition sources spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss internal deliberations.

Officials with Clinton’s transition team declined to comment on the matter, and aides to Rice could not immediately be reached. State Department officials declined to comment on issues related to the transition.

It was not clear if Clinton and Rice _ who had strained relations during the Democratic primaries because of Rice’s steadfast backing of Obama _ saw each other at the State Department as Clinton left the building shortly after Rice arrived.

During the presidential campaign, some Clinton aides saw Rice’s early decision to back Obama as a betrayal because of her previous role as a high State Department official during President Bill Clinton’s administration. Rice’s desire to place her own team in Washington could fuel speculation that those tensions will carry into the new administration.

The officials could not say if Clinton’s team had formally objected to Rice’s plan, or even if Rice would be able to install a separate transition team inside the State Department. But they noted that dueling transition teams could complicate the handover by blurring lines of authority.

Technically, the job of U.N. envoy falls under the authority of the secretary of state, although some previous U.N. ambassadors have held cabinet rank. The last U.N. ambassador to be part of the president’s cabinet was Richard Holbrooke, who had a famously icy relationship with then-Secretary of State Madeleine Albright during the Clinton administration.

Albright, who was President Clinton’s first ambassador to the United Nations, was a mentor to Rice. But the two had a falling out when Albright, America’s first female secretary of state, lined up behind Hillary Clinton for the Democratic presidential nomination and Rice backed Obama.

Hillary Clinton, meanwhile, was to dine Monday evening with the nation’s current and second female secretary of state, Condoleezza Rice, at Rice’s apartment in the exclusive Watergate complex. The two Rices are not related and Condoleezza Rice said on Sunday that she thought Clinton would do a great job.

Also Monday, Clinton was to meet privately with Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass. and the incoming chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, according to a Democratic official. Kerry, once a contender for the secretary of state job, will oversee Clinton’s confirmation. Kerry has pledged to hold “swift and fair” confirmation hearings.

At the recent Gridiron dinner, an off the records dinner in which politicians sing and crack jokes said that his real goal was to become President of the United States because ‘Once you go black you don’t go back,’ referencing Barack Obama’s recent election.

Patterson has been the subject of a lot of speculation recently due to his role as the person who decides who Hillary Clinton’s Senate seat goes too.

Watch Paterson Discuss Hillary Clinton’s Vacant Senate Seat

It’s slim pickings left for high-profile White House hopefuls, as bold-face names like Clinton and Gates have taken some of the plum postings. With the inner circle occupied, most of the jockeying now focuses on powerful, lower-profile sub-Cabinet positions.

But there are a few gems left for the taking as Barack Obama fills out his White House roster – including a few that might be uniquely Obama. The father of the Internet – working on a government salary? It could be.

Here’s a look at the five best jobs left to be doled out by Obama. There isn’t a lot here that would usually make big headlines, but they are jobs that could get a boost in stature given the economic meltdown and Obama’s personal priorities.

Click here for the full list.

Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton probably never imagined how their tale would play. As competitors for the highest office in the land (in a historic year no less), they pulled no punches in criticizing each other. As recently as this week, Clinton’s Secretary of State appointment was in serious doubt as the Obama legal team worked quickly to investigate the Clinton Global Initiative and its ties to foreign funding. 

Of course there was that whole primary thing in which Hillary questioned Barack Obama’s patriotism by way of his absent flag pin, and Barack Obama associated Clinton with the Iraq War vote she cast as a junior Senator. All the mud-slinging and unfriendly exchanges notwithstanding, the rivals probably increased their wherewithal and respect for the other during their contest. Even as President Bill Clinton hesitated to confer the ultimate respect on Barack Obama (acknowledging his qualifications), the Obama strategists moved to involve Hillary Clinton in some aspect of his incoming administration. 

The final verdict? Hillary Clinton will hold one of the highest Cabinet positions as Secretary of State, daring to create a new peace accord in the Middle East, and to sanction terrorist states on the international fringe. The State and Justice departments were in severe disarray under President George W. Bush, and the intelligence organizations like the FBI and CIA felt like outsiders in the security discussion. By employing a key negotiator in Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama will do much to mend the fences between those institutions. And more importantly, Senator Clinton has never been a pushover. World leaders will have to take her seriously or face dire consequences.

What Reporters Are Saying

From Politico: 

“One of the things that people often make a mistake in doing is assuming that there’s some sort of personal animosity there, when in fact they were engaged in a very intense competition for the nomination,” said Phil Singer, who was a spokesman for Clinton’s campaign. “They both have a very healthy level of respect for one another.”

From NYTimes:  

 

If Mr. Obama and his team can bring about that kind of shift, it could mark one of the most significant changes in national security strategy in decades and greatly enhance the powers of Mrs. Clinton as secretary of state.

Mrs. Clinton may find, as her predecessor Condoleezza Rice and others in the Bush administration discovered, that building up civilian capacity is easier to advocate than execute.

 

Reasons why Hillary is a great choice from The Daily Beast: 

 

1) Hillary’s Experienced. She may not be the foreign policy wonk like Richard Holbrooke or James Steinberg, but all those years as First Lady—many of them on the road—have given her considerable exposure to foreign leaders. That’s important because Obama himself won’t be able to devote as much attention to foreign policy as everyone assumed six months ago. Until the economy recovers (and who knows when that will be), he’s going to be primarily a domestic policy president. That means he needs foreign policy advisors who can make tough decisions without a lot of Oval Office hand-holding. Hillary fits the bill.

2) She’s No Pushover. Secretary of state is a hard job. In the last half-century, secretaries of state have often been outmaneuvered by national security advisors, who have greater proximity to the boss, and don’t have a big, slow bureaucracy to manage. Now that vice presidents have started to wield real power, life atop Foggy Bottom has gotten harder still. Hillary will have her hands full going up against James Jones, Robert Gates and Joseph Biden, but she’s got a far better chance than, say, John Kerry or Bill Richardson, for two reasons. First, she’s got star power: Other than Obama himself, she’ll be the most famous person in every room she’s in. Second, she has a network of loyalists, inside and outside government, who know how the game is played. She—and they—won’t be easy to roll.

3) She has a domestic base. When it comes to foreign policy, Obama seems determined to do some pretty controversial things: Step up withdrawals from Iraq, launch a diplomatic push with Iran, perhaps shift resources from America’s military to the diplomatic corps. All these things will require a secretary of state who knows how to sell policies in Peoria, and on Capitol Hill. That’s one of Hillary’s big advantages. She thinks like a politician, not a career diplomat, which is crucial since Obama’s Middle East policies will likely require a kind of political campaign at home, so the right can’t successfully paint him as soft on America’s foes.

And the surprise endorsement that no one saw coming. Conservative bigot radio host Rush Limbaugh has called President-elect Obama’s choice of Hillary “a brilliant stroke“:

Says Limbaugh: “You know the old phrase, ‘You keep your friends close and your enemies closer?’ How can she run for president in 2012? She’d have to run against the incumbent and be critical of him _ the one who made her secretary of state.”

Despite the potential friction that remains in this relationship, Barack Obama seems willing to divert their sense of competition into the mechanics of a working relationship. Although this is a risky strategy, it is certainly broad-minded as the U.S. looks to improve its standing in the world and fix a flailing economy. 

Obama continued his theme of diversity by choosing two more female leaders for crucial positions, most notably his chief rival for the Democratic nomination, Hillary Clinton. Clinton is well-respected among world leaders, and has a breadth of knowledge of world affairs that will surely make her a force of both diplomacy and defense. In the wake of the terrorist attacks in Mumbai, and the changing world climate concerning Islamic extremism and genocide, the President-elect will be responsible for ending the Iraq War cautiously. Marine General James Jones will serves as his National Security Adviser. 

From Associated Press: 

 

CHICAGO (AP) President-elect Barack Obama announced Monday that Robert Gates would remain as defense secretary, making President Bush’s Pentagon chief his own as he seeks to wind down the U.S. role in Iraq. Obama picked former campaign rival Hillary Rodham Clinton as secretary of state.

At a news conference, Obama also introduced retired Marine Gen. James Jones as White House national security adviser, former Justice Department official Eric Holder as attorney general and Arizona Gov. Janet Napolitano as secretary of homeland security.

The announcements rounded out the top tier of the team that will advise the incoming chief executive on foreign and national security issues in an era marked by wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and terrorism around the globe.

“The time has come for a new beginning, a new dawn of American leadership to overcome the challenges of the 21st century,” Obama said as his Cabinet picks stood behind him on a flag-draped stage.

“We will strengthen our capacity to defeat our enemies and support our friends. We will renew old alliances and forge new and enduring partnerships.”

Obama said his appointees “share my pragmatism about the use of power, and my sense of purpose about America’s role as a leader in the world.”

He also appointed campaign foreign policy aide Susan Rice as his ambassador to the United Nations. Obama said he would make her a member of the Cabinet, an increase in stature from the Bush era.

Obama’s announcements marked a shift in emphasis, after a spate of appointments last week for his economic team.

He now has selected half the members of his Cabinet, and is doing so at an unusually quick pace during his transition as he seeks to fulfill his goal of being able to “hit the ground running” when he takes the oath of office on Jan. 20.

Obama introduced Clinton first, saying of his former presidential rival, “She possesses an extraordinary intelligence and toughness, and a remarkable work ethic. … She is an American of tremendous stature who will have my complete confidence, who knows many of the world’s leaders, who will command respect in every capital, and who will clearly have the ability to advance our interests around the world.”

Clinton will give up her seat as a senator from New York to join the Obama Cabinet. Her appointment was preceded by lengthy negotiations involving her husband, the former president, whose international business connections posed potential conflicts of interests.

The former president also agreed to disclose the donors to the foundation that built his library, as well as contributors to his international foundation.

She said to Obama, in a brief turn at the lectern, “I am proud to join you … and may God bless you and our great country.”

Sen. Clinton had scarcely finished speaking when her husband issued a written statement. “She is the right person for the job of helping to restore America’s image abroad, end the war in Iraq, advance peace and increase our security, by building a future for our children with more partners and fewer adversaries, one of shared responsibilities and opportunities,” he said.

Gates said he was “mindful that we are engaged in two wars and face other serious challenges at home and around the world.”

“I must do my duty as they do theirs,” he said of the men and women in uniform in Iraq, Afghanistan and elsewhere. “How could I do otherwise?”

He said he was “honored to serve President-elect Obama.”

 

Obama’s announcements include members of his national security team and beyond, completing the nominations for one-third of his Cabinet as he moves quickly to assemble the country’s new leadership in times of war and a troubled economy.

His selections include some of his most loyal campaign advisers and notably some who were not, including Democratic primary rival Clinton and President Bush‘s defense secretary, Robert Gates, staying in his current post.

Obama also planned to name Washington lawyer Eric Holder as attorney general and Arizona Gov. Janet Napolitano as homeland security secretary, according to Democratic officials. He also planned to announce two senior foreign policy positions outside the 15-member Cabinet: campaign foreign policy adviser Susan Rice as U.N. ambassador and retired Marine General James L. Jones as national security adviser.

The Democratic official disclosed the plans on a condition of anonymity Sunday because they were not authorized for public release ahead of the news conference.

Those names had been discussed before for those jobs, but Obama was going to make them official Monday in his hometown.

Last week, he named key members of his economic team, including Timothy Geithner, president of Federal Reserve Bank of New York, as treasury secretary. Obama is not yet ready to name his intelligence advisers, one Democratic official said.

Clinton’s nomination is the latest chapter in what began as a bitter rivalry for the Democratic presidential nomination. After Obama defeated her, Clinton backed his general election campaign against Republican Sen. John McCain, and she now has agreed to give up her Senate seat to be his top diplomat.

To make it possible for his wife to become secretary of state, party officials said, former President Clinton agreed:

_to disclose the names of every contributor to his foundation since its inception in 1997 and all contributors going forward.

_to refuse donations from foreign governments to the Clinton Global Initiative, his annual charitable conference.

_to cease holding CGI meetings overseas.

_to volunteer to step away from day-to-day management of the foundation while his wife is secretary of state.

_to submit his speaking schedule to review by the State Department and White House counsel.

_to submit any new sources of income to a similar ethical review.

Bill Clinton‘s business deals and global charitable endeavors had been expected to create problems for the former first lady’s nomination. But in negotiations with the Obama transition team, the former president agreed to several measures designed to bring transparency to those activities.

“It’s a big step,” said Sen. Richard G. Lugar of Indiana, the top Republican on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, who said he plans to vote to confirm Clinton.

Lugar said there would still be “legitimate questions” raised about the former president’s extensive international involvement. “I don’t know how, given all of our ethics standards now, anyone quite measures up to this who has such cosmic ties, but … hopefully, this team of rivals will work,” Lugar said.

Obama and Clinton clashed repeatedly on foreign affairs during the primary. Obama criticized Clinton for her vote to authorize the Iraq war. Clinton said Obama lacked the experience to be president and she chided him for saying he would meet with leaders of nations such as Iran and Cuba without conditions.

Advisers said Obama had for several months envisioned Clinton as his top diplomat, and he invited her to Chicago to discuss the job just a week after the Nov. 4 election. The two met privately Nov. 13 in Obama’s transition office in downtown Chicago.

Clinton was said to be interested and then to waver, concerned about relinquishing her Senate seat and the political independence it conferred. Those concerns were largely resolved after Obama assured her she would be able to choose a staff and have direct access to him, advisers said.

Remaining in the Senate also may not have been an attractive choice for Clinton. Despite her political celebrity, she is a relatively junior senator without prospects for a leadership position or committee chairmanship anytime soon.

Clinton “is known throughout the world, very smart, a little harder line than Senator Obama took during the campaign,” said Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., a close McCain friend and adviser who is on the Senate Armed Services Committee.

Sen. Jack Reed, D-R.I., a senior member of the Armed Services Committee, said the Clintons will have to tread carefully to avoid the appearance of conflicts.

“The presumption will be that both Secretary of State Clinton and former President Clinton will be very judicious in what they take on because there’s a new dimension here,” Reed said. “I think they’ve put up a good framework. This disclosure, this transparency is the right way to go.”

Lugar and Reed both spoke on ABC’s “This Week.” Graham was on “Fox News Sunday.”

From SarojOnTheIssues:

So far so good, I’d say, with some exceptions:

Rahm Emanuel: I cannot think of a better person for the position of chief of staff, given his reputation as someone who “takes no prisoners.”  He has been involved in politics for some twenty three years, from political staffer to Congressional Representative from the state of Illinois.  Besides his experience, his no-nonsense attitude is much needed to keep President Obama’s staff on task, with regard to seeing his agenda through.

Click here to read an analysis of all of the other appointments, including Hillary Clinton.

President-elect Barack Obama plans to nominate Hillary Rodham Clinton as secretary of state after Thanksgiving, a new milestone for the former first lady and a convergence of two political forces who fought hard for the presidency.

One week after the former primary rivals met secretly to discuss the idea of Clinton becoming the nation’s top diplomat, an Obama adviser said Thursday that the two sides were moving quickly toward making it a reality, barring any unforeseen problems.

The senior adviser, speaking on condition of anonymity because the president-elect is not prepared to officially announce the nomination, said Obama believes Clinton would bring instant stature and credibility to U.S. diplomatic relations.

Obama is convinced the advantages of Clinton serving far outweighed potential downsides, the adviser said.

Transition aides said the two camps have worked out financial disclosure issues involving Clinton’s husband, former President Bill Clinton, and the complicated international funding of his foundation that operates in more than 40 countries. The aides said Obama and Hillary Clinton have had substantive conversations about the secretary of state job.

Clinton has been mulling the post for several days, but the comments from the transition aides suggested that Obama’s team does not feel she is inclined to turn it down. Clinton spokesman Philippe Reines would not comment, except to say that anything about Cabinet appointments is for Obama’s transition team to address.

Clinton would have to surrender her New York Senate seat, which she has held for eight years, to take the job.

The nomination would be a remarkable union between the former first lady who was an early favorite to win the presidency and the first-term senator who upset her in the primary and cruised to a general election victory. Such a high-profile seat in the Cabinet for Clinton also would be another achievement for the most accomplished former first lady in U.S. history, who has been the first presidential spouse to serve in the Senate and run for the White House herself.

Obama was picking other Cabinet posts as well. Obama has informally selected Washington lawyer Eric Holder as attorney general and former Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle as health secretary and is likely to choose Arizona Gov. Janet Napolitano to be secretary of homeland security, Democrats said.

Any of the plans could be sidetracked by unexpected glitches in the final vetting process, officials note.