Obama rolls out national security team

Clinton nominated to Obama's national security team
President-Elect Obama rolled out his national security team picks this morning in a press conference. There were no surprises being that all that were named had been previously speculated. Obama named Sen. Hillary Clinton as secretary of state, retired Marine Gen. Jim Jones as his national security adviser, Eric Holder as attorney general, Arizona Gov. Janet Napolitano as homeland security secretary and Susan Rice as ambassador to the United Nations. Watching President-Elect Obama and his new national security team, I personally couldn't help but observe a reserved confidence amongst them. But does is stop at a display of confidence or will this team of rivals actually be able to work together and get things done? Obama stated that while his team shares a common vision on national security, they will disagree and he welcomes the differences of opinion, but that ultimately "the buck stops with me." Read President-Elect Obama's entire remarks here.

Obama's National Security Team

Monday morning at 10:40 am President-Elect Obama is scheduled to introduce his national security team. His rumored picks have created a lot of buzz due to the fact that some we have known in Washington for a while, in a sense contradicting Obama's campaign rhetoric of change, and most have opposing views to those of Obama on national security. In addition, since Obama is trying to do the Abe Lincoln thing, these are pretty much his rivals. These picks consist of Hilary Clinton as Secretary of State, retired marine general Jim Jones as National Security Adviser, and current Defense Secretary Robert Gates would maintain his position. Obama says his position of change has not changed, stating:

What we are going to do is combine experience with fresh thinking. But understand where the vision for change comes from first and foremost, it comes from me. Thats my job. To provide a vision in terms of where we are going and to make sure that my team is implementing.

I feel that Obama is attempting to balance experience with change. What do you think?

Joe the Vice President

Vice Presidential candidate Joe Biden gets noticeably irritated during an interview with Florida news anchor Barbara West. West proceeded to ask several questions that sounded as if they were written by the McCain campaign. West asked questions like aren't you "embarrassed" about Obama's "ties" to ACORN, how can Obama not be a "Marxist" with his "spread the wealth" philosophy, and a bunch of other foolish questions. Well Biden gave her an answer to all of her questions while posing some of his own like "are you joking?" and "is this a joke, or is that a real question?"