In Foreign Policy, a New Trio at the Top: Clinton, Kerry and Obama Begin to Realign Their Roles

[DeepModem Mom]

WP, pg1: In Foreign Policy, a New Trio at the Top
With Hearing Today, Clinton, Kerry and Obama Begin to Realign Their Roles
By Anne E. Kornblut and Glenn Kessler
Washington Post Staff Writers
Tuesday, January 13, 2009; A01

When Sen. John F. Kerry (D-Mass.) gavels the Senate Foreign Relations Committee to order today and welcomes Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.) to her confirmation hearing as President-elect Barack Obama's nominee to be secretary of state, he will mark the ascendance of a new triumvirate dominating the foreign policy arena.

The hearing will also call attention to a particularly awkward tangle of relationships....Now, the three appear to have largely put the past behind them, with Kerry and Clinton having preliminary discussions about what foreign trips they can take together and Obama working to forge a close working relationship with Clinton in a series of regular phone calls and meetings since he chose her for secretary of state in mid-November.

Still, Kerry will have a different mission than Clinton and the president she serves. In an interview, Kerry said it is not his goal to hold the Obama administration's feet to the fire. "On the other hand, I don't work for them," Kerry said. "The committee is an independent branch . . . and where necessary, we're obviously going to push and cajole and prod and try to hold accountable. But we'll do it in a way that I hope is entirely constructive and in partnership wherever possible."...

***

Clinton has been cramming hard for her first test; she has been especially eager to master the differences between her statements on the campaign trail and those of the president-elect, whose foreign policy vision she will now be in charge of executing. What is not yet clear is whether Clinton will have her own set of priorities in the job, or whether she has developed a strategic approach to the world and America's role in it....

***

To be sure, Clinton will be charged with undertaking an agenda largely set by Obama, and transition officials say her confirmation hearings will be a forum to lay out that agenda, not hers.

Even before the election, a task force appointed by Obama had produced a 35-page report on the key issues facing the State Department and the new secretary, according to Wendy Sherman, a close adviser to Clinton who headed the State agency review team. A 15-person team then followed up with even more briefing papers, drawn from more than 400 meetings with insiders and outside groups. The State Department produced its own blizzard of paper, including unvarnished personal essays from each assistant secretary of state and every chief of mission overseas.

"She read absolutely everything. It must have run into the thousands of pages," said Sherman, adding: "She wants to hit the ground running. She is going to be thorough but decisive."...

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/01/12/AR2009011203510_pf.html

[applegrove]

1. Isn't it wonderful that all three of our best democrats are working together on

this the most important of portfolios.

[DeepModem Mom]

2. A stellar team! nt

[applegrove]

3. Every time I think of Obama & his team "I laugh and wiggle both my ears".

He is so inspiring. And he has such guts with who he appointed. Not afraid of Hillary. I think it is grand.