Obama Vows To Grow Military, Defeat al Qaeda

Where's The Change?


[By Andrea Shalal-Esa, Reuters | Monday, 1 December, 2008.]
President-elect Barack Obama vowed on Monday to continue to invest to strengthen the U.S. military, increase ground forces and ensure success against al Qaeda and the Taliban. Announcing his national security team, Obama said Defense Secretary Robert Gates had agreed to remain in office, and reiterated his intention to announce a new mission as soon as he took office to end the war in Iraq. "We will also ensure that we have the strategy - and resources - to succeed against al Qaeda and the Taliban," Obama told a news conference. "And going forward, we will continue to make the investments necessary to strengthen our military and increase our ground forces to defeat the threats of the 21st century." (Link.)


Related: Obama To Disillusioned Voters: "I Am The Change"

Americans who voted for Obama expecting change have been bitterly disappointed by his recent appointments of old Clintonites and Bush cabinet members.


[By Steven Thomma, McClatchy Newspapers | Wednesday, 26 november, 2008.]
President-elect Barack Obama essentially said Wednesday that he is the change, striving to assure Americans that he'll shake up Washington despite filling his administration with old hands from the Clinton administration and the capital's corridors of power. "Understand where the vision for change comes from, first and foremost," Obama said. "It comes from me. That's my job, is to provide a vision in terms of where we are going, and to make sure, then, that my team is implementing."

Obama made the remarks as he tapped another old Washington hand - this one former Federal Reserve Chairman Paul Volcker, as a top economic adviser - and prepared to name his former rival, Sen. Hillary Clinton, D-N.Y., as secretary of state next week. As a presidential candidate, Obama's central theme was that he'd change the way politics and the government work, and suggested that it'd take a fresh, outsider approach to do that. "Change doesn't come from Washington," he said. "Change comes to Washington." Yet he's raised questions about how much he can deliver on that promise given the long list of beltway insiders he's named, or signaled that he will name, to run his government. (Full story here.)