Obama defends team of insiders

WASHINGTON — President-elect Obama essentially said Wednesday that he is the change, striving to assure Americans that he will 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 in his third news conference in three days as he tapped another old Washington hand — former Federal Reserve Chairman Paul Volcker, as a top economic adviser — and prepared to name former rival Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, D-N.Y., as secretary of state.

Volcker, 81, has been advising Obama about the economy for months. After briefly considering him for Treasury secretary, Obama instead asked Volcker to lead the President's Economic Recovery Advisory Board, a new panel to consist of leading figures from a variety of sectors. The group is supposed to advise Obama on how to jump-start the economy and stabilize the financial markets.

Austan Goolsbee, a University of Chicago economist who was a leading economic adviser to the Obama campaign, will lead the staff of the advisory board, the president-elect said.

As a candidate, Obama's central theme was that he would change the way politics and the government work, and he suggested it would take a fresh, outsider approach to do that. "Change doesn't come from Washington," he said. "Change comes to Washington." Some have raised questions about how much he can deliver on that promise given the long list of insiders he's named, or signaled that he will name, to help run the government.

Among them:

• Former Clinton White House adviser Rahm Emanuel as White House chief of staff.

• Former Clinton Treasury Secretary Lawrence Summers as director of the National Economic Council.

• Former Clinton lawyer Greg Craig as White House counsel.

• Former Treasury Department official and current Federal Reserve Bank of New York Chairman Timothy Geithner as treasury secretary.

• Former Clinton Deputy Attorney General Eric Holder as attorney general.

Others may not have been in the Clinton administration but offer deep Washington experience. Volcker, for example, was Federal Reserve chairman during the presidencies of Carter and Reagan. Tom Daschle, Obama's apparent choice to head the Department of Health and Human Services, is a former Senate majority leader.

Obama noted that Volcker "hasn't been in Washington for quite some time. And that's part of the reason he can provide a fresh perspective."

Generally, however, the president-elect rejected the suggestion that he needs to be surrounded by outsiders to stir things up. Instead, he said, he'll set the tone and will need experienced hands to implement the changes.

"I suspect that you would be troubled, and the American people would be troubled, if I selected a treasury secretary or a chairman of the National Economic Council, at one of the most critical economic times in our history, who had no experience in government whatsoever."

He stressed that "what we are going to do is combine experience with fresh thinking."

Information from The New York Times is included in this report.