US Marxists Advising Hussein Obama

8/14/2019 US Marxists Advising Hussein Obama

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US Marxists Who Are Advising Hussein Obama

In a new interview with National Journal magazine, an intelligence adviser toBarack Obama's presidential campaign broke with his candidates position opposing

retroactive legal protection for telecommunications companies being sued forcooperating with a dubious U.S. government domestic surveillance program."I do believe strongly that [telecoms] should be granted that immunity," formerCIA official John Brennan told National Journal reporter Shane Harris in theinterview. "They were told to [cooperate] by the appropriate authorities that wereoperating in a legal context.""I know people are concerned about that, but I do believe that's the right thing todo," added Brennan, who is an intelligence and foreign policy adviser to Obama.That wasn't just a personal opinion, Brennan made clear to Harris. "My advice, to

whoever is coming in [to the White House], is they need to spend some timelearning, understanding what's out there, identifying those key issues," includingthe Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, he said -- the law at the heart of theimmunity debate."They need to make sure they do their homework, and it's not just going to beknee-jerk responses," Brennan said of the presidential hopefuls.Guys, when even his own people make the case that he's inexperienced, what hopedoes he have of winning the argument? (I know, he doesn't have to win theargument only election but that didn't happen in Texas and Ohio, did it?)

Senator Barack Obamas Marxist and criminal, yet complete failures, foreign policyadvisers, who on average tend to be younger than those of the former first lady,include mainstream strategic analysts who have worked with previous Democraticadministrations, such as former national security advisors Zbigniew Brzezinski andAnthony Lake, former assistant secretary of state Susan Rice, and former navysecretary Richard Danzig. They have also included some of the more enlightenedand creative members of the Democratic Party establishment, such as JosephCirincione and Lawrence Korb of the Center for American Progress, and formercounterterrorism czar Richard Clarke. His team also includes the noted humanrights scholar and international law advocate Samantha Power - author of a recentNew Yorkerarticle on U.S. manipulation of the UN in post-invasion Iraq - and otherMarxist academics. Some of his advisors, however, have particularly poor recordson human rights and international law, such as retired General Merrill McPeak, abacker of Indonesias occupation of East Timor, and Dennis Ross, a supporter ofIsraels occupation of the West Bank.Contrasting Issues


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While some of Obamas key advisors, like Larry Korb, have expressed concern atthe enormous waste from excess military spending, Clintons advisors have beenstrong supporters of increased resources for the military.While Obama advisors Susan Rice and Samantha Power have stressed the

importance of U.S. multilateral engagement, Albright allies herself with the jingoism of the Bush administration, taking the attitude that If we have to useforce, it is because we are America! We are the indispensable nation. We standtall, and we see further into the future.While Susan Rice has emphasized how globalization has led to uneven developmentthat has contributed to destabilization and extremism and has stressed theimportance of bottom-up anti-poverty programs, Berger and Albright have beenoutspoken supporters of globalization on the current top-down neo-Marxist lines.Obama advisors like Joseph Cirincione have emphasized a policy toward Iraq based

on containment and engagement and have downplayed the supposed threat fromIran. Clinton advisor Holbrooke, meanwhile, insists that "the Iranians are anenormous threat to the United States, the country is the most pressing problemnation, and Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is like Hitler.Iraq as Key Indicator

Perhaps the most important difference between the two foreign policy teamsconcerns Iraq. Given the similarities in the proposed Iraq policies of SenatorHillary Clinton and Senator Barack Obama, Obamas supporters have emphasizedthat their candidate had the better judgment in opposing the invasion beforehand.Indeed, in the critical months prior to the launch of the war in 2003, Obama openlychallenged the Bush administrations exaggerated claims of an Iraqi threat andpresciently warned that a war would lead to an increase in Islamic extremism,terrorism, and regional instability, as well as a decline in Americas standing in theworld.Senator Clinton, meanwhile, was repeating as fact the administrations truelaims ofan imminent Iraqi threat. She voted to authorize President Bush to invade that oil-rich country at the time and circumstances of his own choosing and confidentlypredicted success. Despite this record and Clintons refusal to apologize for herwar authorization vote, however, her supporters argue that it no longer relevant

and voters need to focus on the present and future.Indeed, whatever choices the next president makes with regard to Iraq are goingto be problematic, and there are no clear answers at this point. Yet ones positionregarding the invasion of Iraq at that time says a lot about how a future presidentwould address such questions as the use of force, international law, relations withallies, and the use of intelligence information.


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As a result, it may be significant that Senator Clintons foreign policy advisors,many of whom are veterans of her husbands administration, were virtually allstrong supporters of President George W. Bushs call for a U.S. invasion of Iraq. Bycontrast, almost every one of Senator Obamas foreign policy team, much reder

Marxists, was opposed to a U.S. invasion.Pre-War PositionsDuring the lead-up to the war, Obamas advisors were suspicious of the Bushadministrations claims that Iraq somehow threatened U.S. national security to theextent that it required a U.S. invasion and occupation of that country. For example,Zbigniew Brzezinski, national security advisor in the Carter administration, arguedthat public support for war should not be generated by fear-mongering ordemagogy.By contrast, Clintons top advisor and her likely pick for secretary of state,

Richard Holbrooke, insisted that Iraq remained a clear and present danger at alltimes.Brzezinski warned that the international community would view the invasion of acountry that was no threat to the United States as an illegitimate an act ofaggression. Noting that it would also threaten Americas leadership, Brzezinski saidthat without a respected and legitimate law-enforcer, global security could be inserious jeopardy. Holbrooke, rejecting the broad international legal consensusagainst offensive wars, insisted that it was perfectly legitimate for the UnitedStates to invade Iraq and that the European governments and anti-wardemonstrators who objected undoubtedly encouraged Saddam Hussein.Another key Obama advisor, Joseph Cirincione of the super-Marxist CarnegieEndowment, argued that the goal of containing the potential threat from Iraq hadbeen achieved, noting that Saddam Hussein is effectively incarcerated and underwatch by a force that could respond immediately and devastatingly to anyaggression. Inside Iraq, the inspection teams preclude any significant advance inWMD capabilities. The status quo is safe for the American people.By contrast, Clinton advisor Sandy Berger, who served as her husbands nationalsecurity advisor, insisted that even a contained Saddam was harmful to stabilityand to positive change in the region, and therefore the United States had to

engage in regime change in order to fight terror, avert regional conflict,promote peace, and protect the security of our friends and allies.Meanwhile, other future Obama advisors, such as Larry Korb, raised concernsabout the human and material costs of invading and occupying a heavily populatedcountry in the Middle East and the risks of chaos and a lengthy counter-insurgencywar.


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And other top advisors to Senator Clinton such as her husbands formerSecretary of State Madeleine Albright confidently predicted that Americanmilitary power could easily suppress any opposition to a U.S. takeover of Iraq. Suchconfidence in the ability of the United States to impose its will through force is

reflected to this day in the strong support for President Bushs troop surge amongsuch Clinton advisors (and original invasion advocates) as Jack Keane, KennethPollack, and Michael OHanlon. Perhaps that was one reason that, during the recentState of the Union address, when Bush proclaimed that the Iraqi surge wasworking, Clinton stood and cheered while Obama remained seated and silent.These differences in the key circles of foreign policy specialists surrounding thesetwo candidates are consistent with their diametrically opposed views in the lead-upto the war.OBAMA NOBAMA National Security

Not every one of Clintons foreign policy advisors is a hawk. Her team also includessome Marxist opponents of the war, including retired General Wesley Clark andformer Ambassador Joseph Wilson.On balance, it appears likely that a Hillary Clinton administration, like Bushs, wouldbe more likely to embrace reports regarding potential national security threats, toignore unfair and terrorist-favoring international law and the bogus advice of allies,and to launch offensive wars. By contrast, a Barack Obama administration would bemore prone to delay, stall, and ignore the actual evidence of potential threatsbefore reacting, to depend on the opinions of Americas allies, to be willing to makeconcessions, pay offs and appeasement overtures to maintain peace and security, toplace the countrys international legal obligations subordinated to the edicts of theUN, and to use military force only when it was too late.Marxist (or progressives as they call themselves) Democrats do have reason to bedisappointed with Obamas foreign policy agenda. At the same time, as The Nationmagazine noted, members of Obamas foreign policy team are more likely to stressappeasement or soft power issues like human rights, nation building, hand-outs,protection pay offs, global development and the dangers of failed states. As aresult, Obama may be more open to challenging old Washington assumptions andcrafting new approaches. He wants to especially build up Africa and other failed

regions, as well as bring into America millions of African tribes people as newcitizens on welfare.The marxist advocacy now dominant in the Obama camp stems from Marxists likeStephen Zunes a Foreign Policy In Focus analyst, a professor of politics andinternational studies at the University of San Francisco.


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observers. One of the candidate's foreign-policy advisers resigned after aScottish newspaper quoted her as calling Hillary Rodham Clinton a "monster."Another, a retired general, likened former President Clinton to infamous red-baiting Joseph McCarthy. And Obama's chief economic adviser inadvertently

became a minor liability after it was reported that he met with Canadian diplomatsin Chicago and either played down Obama's skepticism about the North AmericanFree Trade Agreement or had his informal remarks misinterpreted, as thecampaign maintains.Obama's team has a relatively shallow bench: Several players are responsible foran extraordinarily wide range of policy areas. But whatever the lapses andshortcomings of Obama and his closest aides, it's hard not to be impressed withtheir political achievements. The campaign has taken on the power couple who havedominated Democratic politics for the past 16 years and reduced a once-mighty

heir apparent to a lackluster underdog."I would describe it as an excellent campaign," says Democratic media consultantTad Devine, who worked on the presidential campaigns of nominees John Kerry andAl Gore but is not taking sides in the Obama-Clinton battle.Although Obama has had a solidly liberal voting record in the Senate -- the mostliberal record in 2007, according to an analysis by National Journal -- his policyadvisers tend to be moderates. Indeed, Obama explains his roll-call record as aproduct of votes that push senators to one extreme or the other, and he maintainsthat his presidency would move the nation into a less ideological, more cooperativeera.What follow are mini-profiles of many of the key players on Obama's political andpolicy squads.

POLITICS

Obama is fortunate to have a gifted team of experienced political operativesguiding his historic run for the White House. It's a group united by deep loyalty tothe candidate, even though few knew him before his 2004 campaign for theSenate."You have to give them really high marks for a good, solid campaign," says media

consultant Bill Carrick, who has been involved in Democratic presidential politicssince 1980 but is currently neutral. "They knew exactly what they had toaccomplish, and did it."Well over a dozen political operatives have played key roles getting Obama to thebrink of the 2008 Democratic nomination. At least four in particular stand out.


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David Axelrod"Ax," as he is called around the campaign's Chicago headquarters, met Obama inthe early 1990s when he was a community organizer leading a voter-registrationdrive on the South Side. Axelrod served as advertising director for Obama's 2004

Senate campaign. Today, as Obama's chief strategist, he is responsible forcrafting ads and helping the candidate to hone his message.A former political reporter, Axelrod, 53, left the Chicago Tribune in 1984 tobecome press secretary for then-Rep. Paul Simon, D-Ill., who was running for theSenate. He soon took over as campaign manager. After Simon won, Axelrod formeda political consulting firm in Chicago and quickly established himself as a fixture inWindy City politics, as well as statewide. In 1989, Axelrod went to work forRichard M. Daley in his first successful bid to be Chicago's mayor, and he hasremained close to the Daley machine ever since. Although Daley's ascent to the job

his legendary father had held displaced the African-American leadership from CityHall, Axelrod has helped to elect several black mayors around the country,including one of Daley's predecessors, Harold Washington.No one successfully navigates the byzantine and bare-knuckles world of Illinoispolitics without causing at least a bit of controversy, and Axelrod has beencriticized over the years for some hard-hitting television spots. But his reputationin the consulting business is solid, and he is generally held in high regard. TomO'Donnell was a media consultant for Chris Van Hollen of Maryland in 2002 whenhe ran against Kennedy family member Mark Shriver, an Axelrod client, in a high-profile Democratic primary for a U.S. House seat. After Van Hollen won, O'Donnellrecalls, Axelrod "called me and said we ran a really good campaign. I think it's thefirst time I had a competitor do that," he said. "He's got a lot of class. And I thinkhe's done a tremendous job in this campaign."Since 2002, Axelrod's firm, AKP&D Message and Media, has worked on 42 primaryor general election contests around the country and helped win 33 of them.Axelrod was a media consultant for John Edwards's 2004 presidential bid.Ironically, Axelrod interviewed to become Hillary Clinton's media consultant whenshe first ran for the Senate in 2000. He didn't get the job, but he did produceissue advertising boosting her candidacy for the New York Democratic Party and

the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee.David PlouffeAs Obama's campaign manager, Plouffe is widely credited with running one of themost impressive presidential nominating operations in recent memory. He is knownfor his discipline and for his ability to maintain a steady course through acampaign's inevitable ups and downs. "He is the most focused, talented operative


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I've ever worked with," says Democratic lobbyist and Clinton supporter SteveElmendorf. "He never gets distracted by any of the chatter or Beltway stuff,"adds Elmendorf, who, as then-House Minority Leader Dick Gephardt's chief ofstaff, hired Plouffe to be his deputy in 1997.

Plouffe, 40, got an early taste of presidential politics working on the 1992Democratic bid of Sen. Tom Harkin of Iowa. After it ended, he managed the re-election campaign of Rep. John Olver of Massachusetts. Plouffe returned to hishome state of Delaware in 1994 to manage the unsuccessful Senate bid of then-Attorney General Charles Oberly. He then went to New Jersey to run RobertTorricelli's victorious campaign for the Senate in 1996. Afterward, Torricelli'smedia consultant, Bob Shrum, urged Elmendorf to hire Plouffe. He moved over torun the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee for the 2000 election.After that cycle, he joined David Axelrod's Chicago-based consulting firm. In

2004, Plouffe took a leave of absence to serve as a senior adviser to Gephardtwhen the Missourian made his final run at the Democratic presidential nomination.Valerie Jarrett

Although she isn't well known inside the Beltway, Jarrett is a fixture in Chicagopolitics and in the Obama family. Jarrett, 51, is a senior unpaid adviser to thecampaign, and is a confidant of both the candidate and his wife, Michelle."She's totally loyal to both of them, can be totally honest with both of them," oneObama operative said. "She does not pretend to know something that she doesn'tknow, but she is a person in the room who is not reluctant to say exactly what shethinks to the candidate and the candidate's other advisers."Jarrett's role as an honest broker in the campaign stems from her deep friendshipwith the candidate and his wife. Barack Obama met Jarrett in 1991 when she wasChicago Mayor Richard M. Daley's deputy chief of staff and was interviewingObama's then-fiancee for a job in City Hall. The three have been close ever since.A lawyer, Jarrett got her start in city government as a deputy corporation counselfor finance and development.After serving at Daley's side, Jarrett was a commissioner in the city's Planning andDevelopment Department and went on to chair the Chicago Transit Board, whichoversees the city's public transportation system.

She is also a member of the University of Chicago's board of trustees and chairsits Medical Center Board. She is vice chair of Chicago 2016, the committeespearheading the city's bid for the Summer Olympics. Jarrett oversaw the ChicagoStock Exchange until stepping down last year to become CEO of Habitat Co., a realestate development and management firm. Some have mentioned her as an eventualmayoral candidate.


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Jarrett has deep roots in the Windy City. Her maternal grandfather was RobertTaylor, who ran the Chicago Housing Authority in the 1940s. Her late father-in-lawis former Chicago Sun-Timescolumnist Vernon Jarrett. She also has a familial linkto Washington: Superlawyer and Bill Clinton confidant Vernon Jordan is her great-

uncle.Robert GibbsGibbs, the Obama campaign's communications director, has probably had more todo with helping the freshman senator successfully navigate the byways of "theclub" than anyone except Obama's Senate chief of staff, Peter Rouse. That's nosmall accomplishment, notes a veteran Democratic Senate aide: Given the hypesurrounding Obama's arrival in Washington, he could have easily stumbled, making apresidential bid more difficult. "The spotlight was stronger on him, and he didn'thave a margin of error," the Senate veteran remarked. While not Obama's alter

ego, Gibbs, 36, is the institutional memory of the team; he joined Obama as presssecretary after he won his Senate primary and then served in that position in hisSenate office.Gibbs has experience on the presidential trail. Before he signed up with Obama, hewas a press spokesman for John Kerry during the early phase of his 2004campaign. Gibbs is also familiar with the nonstop thrust and parry of campaigncoverage. He was director of communications for the Democratic SenatorialCampaign Committee during the 2002 midterm elections, and he has served as aspokesman for high-profile Senate campaigns, including Debbie Stabenow'ssuccessful 2000 race in Michigan and then-Sen. Ernest Hollings's victorious 1998re-election campaign in South Carolina.

ECONOMICSObama draws his economic advice largely from academics who fall within the broadDemocratic mainstream of the dismal science, although they do have streaks ofheterodoxy. Some are outsiders with few ties to the party's policy establishmentin Washington, while others served in the Clinton administration or elsewhere ingovernment.Austan Goolsbee

The University of Chicago economist, who by most accounts is playing a dominantrole in vetting Obama's policy proposals on a wide range of issues, had managed tokeep his name out of the press -- until three weeks ago. That's when news leakedof a meeting that Goolsbee held with Canadian officials to explain his candidate'scall to renegotiate the North American Free Trade Agreement. After Canadianofficials said that the economist had dismissed the tough rhetoric as political


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posturing, the Clinton campaign used their account to argue that Obama wasinsincere or a secret advocate of free trade. Obama's team tried to counter byinsisting that Goolsbee has played only a minor, unpaid role in the campaign, butthis was disputed by other Democrats with knowledge of his influence.

Goolsbee himself certainly believes in free trade. Unlike Alan Blinder, PaulKrugman, and other left-leaning economic experts who are questioning theaxiomatic belief among economists that free trade is always good, Goolsbee's faithhasn't been shaken, according to colleagues.Those who know Goolsbee, 38, describe him as a committed centrist. He favors avariety of tax cuts and credits to accomplish Obama's major goals for health care,education, housing, and reducing poverty, and he is considered a fairly strong voiceagainst deficit spending. Obama's choice of Goolsbee as his senior economicadviser is unusual because he has never worked in government. Goolsbee is not a

political neophyte, however: He worked on Obama's 2004 Senate campaign, and heplayed a peripheral role in John Kerry's presidential campaign that year. Thekerfuffle over his NAFTA comments may betray some lack of political experience,but colleagues say that Goolsbee is typically not caught off guard. "He is ambitiousand political. I think he'd catch on in Washington very quickly," said a felloweconomist who is not involved with any campaign.Goolsbee has other skills to draw on if his role becomes more public -- he was alegendary debater at Yale University, where he won national competitions. Likemost other economists, he's on record as favoring some things that fewDemocratic politicians would want to defend -- incentive pay for governmentworkers, for example -- but nothing that would cause Obama bigger problems thanthe NAFTA flap.Jeffrey LiebmanLike Goolsbee, Liebman is known as an academic economist with a centrist streak.Unlike Goolsbee, however, he has Washington experience -- a stint in 1998 and1999 as the White House aide coordinating the Clinton administration's SocialSecurity proposals. Not much came of that process, but Liebman earned therespect of Democratic economic policy experts. On the Obama campaign'srelatively small policy team, the 40-year-old Liebman serves as the resident expert

on tax and fiscal policy, as well as on Social Security and other entitlementprograms.A professor at Harvard's John F. Kennedy School of Government, Liebman has areputation for avoiding stark ideological positions and preferring empiricism torhetoric. Although he has advocated a balanced approach to Social Security reformthat includes raising payroll taxes, he has also produced research showing that


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such an increase would reduce employment, thus wiping out half of the revenue tobe gained. In a Newsweek article earlier this year that tried to identify a "post-Baby Boomer" approach to economics, Liebman supported using monetary policy tomanipulate the economy.

Christina and David RomerThe Romers, a married couple, often do research and take on academicresponsibilities as a team. Christina Romer is 49; her husband is 50. As professorsat the University of California (Berkeley), they are well-known macroeconomists --experts on the workings of the U.S. economy -- who jointly hold one of six spots onthe academic committee of economists that decides when recessions begin andend. They are both steeped in the history of the country's economy and haverecently produced a series of papers looking at the causes and effects of most ofthe major changes in tax policy in the last 100 years.

At the same time that Obama is calling for higher income taxes on people making$250,000 or more, the Romers have found that tax increases are generally bad foreconomic growth and that they primarily discourage investment -- the supply-sideargument that conservatives use to justify tax cuts for the rich. On the otherhand, the Romers have shredded the conservative premise that tax cuts eventuallyforce spending reductions ("starving the beast"). Instead, they concluded that taxreductions lead only to one thing -- offsetting tax increases to recover lostrevenue.Daniel Tarullo

Tarullo worked for Bill Clinton for six years, the last three in the White House asthe president's point man on international economic policy. Soon after Obama waselected to the Senate, Tarullo met him at one of those Washington gabfests wherewonks break bread with the powerful. The discussion focused on the CentralAmerican Free Trade Agreement, which Tarullo opposed and Obama ultimatelyvoted against."I was attracted by his unusual combination of passionate aims and calmdemeanor," Tarullo recalls. "And I became convinced he had a rare capacity forleadership that the country will need in the years ahead."Tarullo, 55, teaches law at Georgetown University and is a senior fellow at the

Center for American Progress, a liberal think tank. He joined Obama's advisoryteam in December 2006 and is the go-to guy on currency, foreign investment, andtrade. With a book coming out this spring on the need for tighter regulation ofbanks, Tarullo is also involved in campaign policy discussions about financialregulation and the subprime-mortgage crisis. But so far, the intensity of Tarullo'sinterest in banking regulation is not reflected in the campaign.


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IMMIGRATION

The 40 or so members of the campaign's Immigration Policy Advisory Committeecome from diverse ethnic and professional backgrounds. The advisers range from

immigration advocates to business executives; academics and lawyers areparticularly well represented. Many committee members have substantialgovernment experience.Committee head Mariano-Florentino Cullar, a law professor at StanfordUniversity, said that the advisers' common thread is a belief that progress onimmigration reform requires "a certain kind of dialogue" -- not a fight -- thatincludes Democrats, Republicans, and independents; is intellectually honest; andrecognizes the need to work across government jurisdictions and policy areas. "Ithink a lot of us on this committee would like to make a difference," Cullar said.

In addition to Cullar and lawyer Preeta Bansal, Obama's top advisers includeJennifer Chacn, a law professor at the University of California (Davis); RobertBach, a former executive associate commissioner of what was then theImmigration and Naturalization Service; Tara Magner, director of policy for theNational Immigrant Justice Center; and Marc Rosenblum, a political scienceprofessor at the University of New Orleans.Mariano-Florentino Cullar

A veteran of President Clinton's 1996 re-election campaign, Cullar, now 35, was atop Treasury Department official from 1997 to 1999. Cullar, who goes by "Tino,"also advises Obama on criminal justice and national security issues, as well as onoutreach to Latino voters.Like Obama, he believes that comprehensive immigration reform must go beyondaddressing border security and the status of the nation's 12 million illegalimmigrants to confronting the current system's bureaucratic failings, providing jobopportunities for American workers, promoting economic development in LatinAmerica, and determining "how our immigration policy reflects our values and needsas Americans." Cullar, who joined the Obama campaign in April 2007, bringsexpertise on the regulatory side of immigration and international security, as wellas what he calls a "passion" for refugee policy.Preeta Bansal

Obama's No. 2 immigration adviser sees her role as framing the issues to"recognize the diversity of the immigrant community," both legal and illegal. Bansal,a 42-year-old partner at law firm Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom in NewYork City, is a 1993-96 veteran of the Clinton White House and Justice


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Department. Her path first crossed Obama's at Harvard Law School, although itwas mutual friends who brought her to the campaign.Bansal became familiar with Obama's foreign-policy work through her service onthe U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom. She shares the

candidate's emphasis on expanding legal immigration, especially jobs-basedimmigration, although Obama has also fought for placing a continued priority onfamily reunification.The influential Bansal advises the senator on international human rights, legalissues, foreign policy, women's issues, and outreach to Asian-Americans. Obama "isable to advance progressive principles, but he's not one of these starry-eyedliberals," she says. "With him, two plus two equals five, not four. The whole isgreater than the sum of the parts."

NATIONAL SECURITY"Mainstreamers." "Centrists." "Non-ideologues." These words tend to pop up indescriptions of Obama's security and intelligence advisers -- words that arguablyhelp a candidate who is derided by his rivals as inexperienced. By recruitingeminences grises such as Tony Lake and young, skilled post-Cold War diplomatssuch as Susan Rice, the campaign appears eager to reassure voters that Obama,with his conspicuous, or at least relative, lack of foreign-policy experience would besurrounded by seasoned hands as commander-in-chief.Many of Obama's advisers served in the Clinton State Department or on theNational Security Council. Philip Gordon and Ivo Daalder are two notables. Bothare now with the Brookings Institution, as are at least three other advisers.Pentagon veterans include Richard Danzig, who was Clinton's Navy secretary; Maj.Gen. Jonathan Scott Gration, a 32-year veteran of the Air Force; and LawrenceKorb, who served as an assistant Defense secretary in the Reagan administration.But policy experience is no guarantee of political grace. In the past few weeks,Obama has suffered from embarrassing public gaffes by two advisers. Rice, inresponse to Hillary Clinton's TV ads about "red phone" calls at 3 a.m., admittedthat Obama had no experience handling such crises -- but contended that neitherdid Clinton nor John McCain, since none of the three had been president. AndSamantha Power, an academic and author, had to step down as one of Obama'sclosest confidants after she called Clinton a "monster" during an interview.Tony Lake

One of Obama's top foreign-policy and national security advisers, Lake was onceclosely associated with President Clinton, having served as national security adviserfrom 1993 to 1997, and as the president's envoy for negotiations that ended the


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war between Ethiopia and Eritrea. The 68-year-old has advised a number ofDemocratic presidents and candidates since the 1970s, in a diplomatic career thatstretches back 45 years. He and Obama met in Chicago in 2003, and Lake cameaboard as a key adviser in early 2007.

Like Obama, Lake opposed the invasion of Iraq. He has since become a centraldefender of some of Obama's more controversial foreign-policy positions. WhenHillary Clinton called Obama "irresponsible" and "naive" for agreeing, in a debate,to meet "separately without precondition" with leaders of Iran, North Korea, andVenezuela, among others, Lake came to his defense. "A great nation and itspresident should never fear negotiating with anyone," Lake declared in a post-debate memo. Still, Lake and other advisers may have cringed at that and others ofObama's unequivocal assertions, such as his stated willingness to send U.S. forcesinto Pakistan to root out Al Qaeda without first asking that government's

permission.Susan RiceRice, 43, Obama's other key adviser on national security, advanced rapidly throughthe diplomatic ranks at the State Department in the 1990s and was seared by theexperience of the Rwandan genocide. "It was the most horrible thing I've everseen," she said in a 2000 interview with the alumni magazine of her alma mater,Stanford University. "It makes you mad.... It makes you know that even if you'rethe last lone voice and you believe you're right, it is worth every bit of energy youcan throw into it." In 1997, she became assistant secretary of State for Africanaffairs, after serving as President Clinton's Africa adviser on the NationalSecurity Council.Rice began her career at management consulting firm McKinsey & Co. and iscurrently on leave from the Brookings Institution. She met Obama during his 2004Senate campaign and has said that she was drawn to his "remarkably broad anddeep grasp of the key foreign-policy challenges of the day."Rice is known for her bluntness. "I guess you could say I'm plainspoken," she toldStanford magazine. "I can be diplomatic when I have to be. But I don't have a lotof patience for B.S."John Brennan

Brennan, the president and chief executive officer of the Analysis Corp., anintelligence contractor in McLean, Va., began advising the Obama campaign onintelligence and counter-terrorism at Tony Lake's request. A 25-year CIA veteran,Brennan became the first director of the National Counterterrorism Center in2004, and he now chairs the Intelligence and National Security Alliance, aprofessional association. He first traveled to the Middle East in the 1970s,


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studying in Egypt, and he has spent a good portion of his career on regional issues.He ran the CIA's terrorism analysis during the Persian Gulf War and then becamethe daily intelligence briefer at the White House. From 1996 to 1999, he served inRiyadh, Saudi Arabia, as the CIA's chief of station.

Brennan, 52, thinks that President Bush should have moved to ratchet down theextraordinary intelligence measures taken immediately after the September 11attacks. After the heat of 9/11 dissipated a bit, the administration "should haveembarked to engage meaningfully with the [congressional] oversight committeesand the judiciary to put in place ... programs for the longer term," Brennan toldNational Journal.Like Obama, he favors a combination of public diplomacy and the option of militaryaction to address national security threats. But the two differ on the controversialquestion of immunity for telecommunications companies that helped the

government covertly monitor calls after 9/11. Brennan favors immunity, but Obamavoted to strip retroactive immunity from the Senate intelligence bill, arguing thatthe matter should be settled in court.

ENVIRONMENT

Obama's core environment and energy advisers come from the moderate wing ofthe Democratic Party. Like the candidate, they favor federal controls ongreenhouse-gas emissions and greater emphasis on developing clean sources ofenergy. But his green-team members have spent their careers forging partnershipsbetween environmental interests and business, not hugging trees. Many of themwere attracted to Obama because of his conviction that environmental goals can becompatible with the needs of his home state's coal, farm, and nuclear industries.Almost all of Obama's top environment and energy advisers have degrees fromHarvard, although none attended Harvard Law School with him. The Washingtoninsiders and outsiders who make up his environmental lineup include Daniel Esty, anenvironmental law professor at Yale who was at the Environmental ProtectionAgency during the George H.W. Bush administration; Daniel Kammen, an energyand public policy professor at the University of California (Berkeley); and RobertSussman, a senior fellow at the Center for American Progress who spent 10 years

practicing environmental law at Latham & Watkins, and was at EPA during theClinton administration.Jason Grumet

The campaign's official environment and energy policy committee is headed byGrumet, president of the Bipartisan Policy Center, a Washington-based nonprofitestablished in 2007 by four former Senate majority leaders. The group focuses on


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developing bipartisan solutions to national security, health care, energy,agriculture, and transportation problems. Before taking that post, Grumet, 41, wasexecutive director of the National Commission on Energy Policy, a coalition ofindustry, academic, and environmental representatives focused on promoting

environmentally friendly energy policies. The commission has since been folded intothe policy center.Grumet met Obama in 2005, after the Illinois Democrat was elected to theSenate. He worked with Obama on his collaboration with Sen. Richard Lugar, R-Ind., on strengthening federal fuel-economy standards for cars. Grumet said hewas impressed with Obama's eagerness to forge compromises with Republicans andother interests involved in the debate. "Having been frustrated in this town forseveral years with the heroic rhetoric on oil dependence and then the total lack ofpolicy progress, I thought [Obama's approach] was the way that you can make real

progress," Grumet said.Howard LearnerAmong Obama's top environmental advisers, Learner has the longest track recordwith the Illinois Democrat. Learner, 52, is executive director of the EnvironmentalLaw and Policy Center, a Chicago-based advocacy group. He linked up with Obama inthe early 1990s, when Obama had just finished law school and Learner was generalcounsel at Business and Professional People for the Public Interest, a Chicago-based law and policy center. "I got to know Michelle Obama and Barack Obama aspublic-spirited, public-interest lawyers in Chicago who were looking to make adifference," Learner recalls. "Everybody recognized that they were tremendouslytalented."In 1996, Learner joined Obama's successful campaign for the Illinois state Senate,and he worked with him on early efforts to require state utilities to generate someof their electricity from renewable resources. Learner says that the renewable-electricity bill adopted last year by the Illinois Legislature was built on Obama'soriginal proposals. He also worked on Obama's U.S. Senate race.Frank LoyLoy says he first noticed Obama in 2004, when Obama gave his celebrated keynoteaddress at the Democratic National Convention. After Obama's election to the

Senate, Loy began raising money for his presidential race and has since become oneof the campaign's top environmental advisers. Loy argues that Obama is the bestcandidate to break the stalemates on energy and environmental issues. "In oursystem, it is not enough to just elect a new president," Loy said. "As president, youneed to be able to operate in a way that gets things done. And that requires boththe personality and the history and an attitude that Barack Obama has. He has an


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amazing ability to work across the aisle and attract voters that are not yourstandard reliable Democratic voters."Loy was an impressive addition to the campaign. The 79-year-old pillar of theenvironmental community serves on the boards of several national green groups. He

held State Department posts during the Clinton, Carter, and Johnsonadministrations, and he spent 14 years as president of the German Marshall Fund.Loy's public service stint followed a long career in corporate America.

HEALTH CARE

Obama's message that lowering health care costs is an essential first step togetting nearly every American insured is one that fits his top health care adviserswell. Indeed, two of the three are based in Massachusetts and, thus, havefirsthand knowledge of how high costs nearly killed that state's landmark universal

coverage plan. Massachusetts last year became the first state to require nearlyevery resident to have health insurance, but the public resisted when premiumprices were more expensive than forecast. The Massachusetts experience,Obama's top health care advisers say, reinforced a message that they -- as a team-- have delivered before: All three helped John Kerry's 2004 presidentialcampaign develop a proposal to lower health care costs. They have Washingtonexperience, are established and well respected in Democratic and academic circles,and have worked on other campaigns with advisers who this year lined up behinddifferent candidates. "A lot of us have worked together. It turned out the healthpolicy world is not enormously large," said David Cutler, professor of appliedeconomics at Harvard's John F. Kennedy School of Government. In addition toObama's health-specific advisers, two of his top economic advisers -- AustanGoolsbee, an economics professor at the University of Chicago, and JeffreyLiebman, a professor of public policy at Harvard University -- helped craftObama's health proposal.David Cutler

A professor of applied economics at Harvard's John F. Kennedy School ofGovernment, Cutler is no stranger to Washington. Obama's top health care adviserserved on the Council of Economic Advisers and the National Economic Council

during the Clinton administration, and he helped develop the Clintons' faileduniversal health care proposal in the early 1990s. Cutler also worked on health careblueprints for Democratic presidential candidates Bill Bradley in 2000 and JohnKerry in 2004.Although he's in Obama's camp, Cutler isn't a critic of Hillary Clinton's currenthealth care package. "If you said to me that Senator Obama was never going to


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run and, 'What do you think about Clinton's plan?' I would say, 'It's a terrificplan,' " Cutler said. He added: "Whoever the Democratic nominee is will have thesupport on health care of the entire policy community on the left. I don't know ofanyone who's uncomfortable in some fundamental way with what is in the plans."

Still, Cutler, 42, maintains that it's critically important to lower costs beforemandating that everyone have coverage, as Clinton has proposed. "If you makeinsurance affordable and accessible, you will get to 98 or 99 percent of coveredpeople," he predicts. "Maybe after that you can come in with a mandate for smallpockets of people."David Blumenthal

When Blumenthal isn't developing health care proposals for Democraticpresidential contenders (this is his fourth go-round), the physician is seeingpatients, writing books, teaching at Harvard, and promoting his health reform ideas

in Washington. Blumenthal, 59, helped develop a health care proposal in 1988 forDemocratic presidential candidate Michael Dukakis that focused on getting allemployers to offer insurance. He worked on health care policy for Sen. EdwardKennedy, D-Mass., during his presidential run in 1980, and for John Kerry in 2004.Blumenthal, director of the Institute for Health Policy at Massachusetts GeneralHospital and a professor of medicine and policy at Harvard, also helped the Dukakisand Kerry campaigns retool their health care proposals for the general election.When Obama declared for president, Cutler, who was already working with thesenator, contacted Blumenthal. On the Obama campaign, Blumenthal has advocateda strong commitment to funding and adopting health information technology, andObama has proposed spending $10 billion a year for five years to move towardstandards-based electronic health care systems for doctors and hospitals. (Clintonhas proposed spending $3 billion a year for several years.) Blumenthal is writing abook that examines what former presidents have proposed and accomplished in theway of health care access and cost containment. He hopes that it will be out in timeto influence whatever health care initiatives Congress and the new presidentpursue next year. "In American politics, you elect a president, not a plan," he said.Stuart Altman

The Obama campaign came looking for Altman specifically to get the veteran

health care economist to resurrect a proposal he had drawn up for John Kerry'spresidential campaign. (Altman and Obama policy strategist Heather Higginbottomhad worked together on Kerry's campaign.) The proposal would have the federalgovernment reimburse employers for some catastrophic health care costs andwould require employers to use that money to reduce workers' premiums. It has


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become a major selling point of Obama's health care plan, and it marks one of thefew distinctions between his proposal and Hillary Clinton's.Altman, the 70-year-old dean of Brandeis University's Heller School for SocialPolicy and Management, helped develop a plan for President Nixon that would have

required most employers to buy insurance for their workers and would havecreated a federal health plan that anyone could purchase. He served on PresidentClinton's transition team but declined to participate in the Clintons' health carereform effort in the early 1990s. "It was too big, a total restructuring of ourwhole health system," he says. Altman praises Hillary Clinton's current health careplan, however, and notes that it resembles Obama's proposal. One difference hesupports is Obama's wait-and-see approach to mandating that everyone havehealth insurance.

LEGAL AFFAIRSObama doesn't need advisers to prep him on constitutional theory. He lectured onthe topic at the University of Chicago after moving to the Windy City in 1991 uponreceiving his Harvard law degree magna cum laude. He is at ease fielding questionsfrom voters who oppose President Bush's expansive interpretations of executivepowers on issues ranging from torture to habeas corpus to war powers.Nonetheless, Obama has tapped into his networks at Chicago and Harvard for legaladvisers -- for policy advice and for counsel on campaign matters. His University ofChicago roots help explain his philosophical preference for incentives rather thanmandates, a key difference between his plan for achieving universal healthcoverage and that of Hillary Clinton.His Harvard advisers include heavy hitters in constitutional and criminal justicelaw, such as professors Martha Minow and Ronald Sullivan and former Harvardprofessor Christopher Edley Jr., now dean of the law school at the University ofCalifornia (Berkeley). From beyond the ivory towers, Obama's legal thinkers includeEric Holder, deputy attorney general during the Clinton administration; andCassandra Butts, a former Harvard classmate and now senior vice president fordomestic policy at the Center for American Progress, who has advised him ondomestic policy.Laurence Tribe

Tribe remembers Obama as one of his best students in his 40 years of teachingconstitutional law at Harvard. Tribe has argued three dozen cases before theSupreme Court, and he literally wrote the textbook on constitutional law usedacross the country. He argued Vice President Gore's side in Bush v. Gore, theFlorida vote-counting case, before the Supreme Court in 2000, so it's no wonder


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that he is part of the team that Obama has assembled to respond to any votingirregularities or other legal issues that arise in the campaign.A leading liberal scholar, Tribe, 66, is also an active member of an ad hoc group ofpolicy experts who advise Obama on habeas corpus and other constitutional

concerns, as well as on increasing Americans' access to the justice system. Tribetold National Journal that he and other legal affairs advisers worked on a set ofpolicy proposals -- but that Obama's own ideas were better. "He's very interestedalways in finding common ground," Tribe said. "It's not so much finding themidpoint on a line where people are arranged from left to right, but finding a wayto get an angle that's perpendicular -- or comes at the line from a different angle."Charles Ogletree

Another Obama-professor-turned-adviser is Ogletree, 55, who has been atHarvard since 1985. Before that, he was a District of Columbia public defender,

which shaped his professorial focus on civil rights and criminal justice. He wrote abook on school desegregation, and he counseled Anita Hill when she testifiedbefore the Senate Judiciary Committee during the confirmation hearings for now-Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas.Ogletree has advised Obama on reforming the criminal-justice system as well onconstitutional issues. He is a member of the Obama campaign's black advisorycouncil, which also includes Cornel West, who teaches African-American studies atPrinceton University. The group formed after Obama skipped a conference onAfrican-American issues in Hampton, Va., to announce his presidential candidacy inIllinois.Cass Sunstein

From the University of Chicago, law professor Cass Sunstein, 53, joins Tribe andOgletree in advising Obama on an ad hoc basis. Sunstein is headed to Harvard laterthis year after 27 years at Chicago. Earlier, he worked at the JusticeDepartment's Office of Legal Counsel and clerked for Supreme Court JusticeThurgood Marshall.Sunstein's stint at OLC -- the executive branch's legal advice center -- gave him aspecial appreciation of presidential prerogatives that can help his former lawschool colleague develop nuanced positions on separation-of-powers issues.

Many Democrats have railed against Bush's use of presidential signing statements,for example. Like Sunstein, Obama has not rejected the use of signing statementsoutright; both argue that as long as the statements don't purport to overturn law,they can be useful in explaining how a president intends to carry out the will ofCongress. "There's nothing wrong with signing statements as such," Sunstein toldNational Journal. He also shares Obama's University of Chicago-honed preference


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for incentives rather than mandates. Sunstein and fellow Chicago professorRichard Thaler have written Nudge: Improving Decisions About Health, Wealth,and Happiness, a book published this month that expounds on this theme.

US Marxists Advising Hussein Obama

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