Harvard, MIT profs join Obama team

[sabra]

http://www.boston.com/news/politics/politicalintelligence/2009/01/harvard_mit_pro.html

Professors from Harvard and MIT and a top aide to Senator John F. Kerry's presidential campaign will be joining the Obama budget office, his team announced this afternoon.

Jeffrey Liebman, now Malcolm Wiener professor of public policy at Harvard's Kennedy School of Government, will be executive associate director of the Office of Management and Budget. Robert Gordon, policy director for Kerry's presidential campaign in 2004, will be associate director for education, income maintenance, and labor. And Xavier de Souza Briggs, associate professor of sociology and urban planning at MIT, will be associate director for general government programs. (Their biographies, provided by Obama's transition office, are below.)

Obama also announced Steve Kosiak as Associate Director for Defense and International Affairs; Preeta Bansal as OMB General Counsel and Senior Policy Advisor; and Kenneth Baer as Associate Director for Communications and Strategic Planning.

“We are fortunate to have this distinguished group of individuals serving in these key posts, and with Peter Orszag I am confident that this team will be well-equipped to tackle the challenges ahead. The Office of Management and Budget in my administration will not only design, manage and implement our budget, it will focus on cutting waste and making sure that our government is serving the American people effectively and efficiently. I look forward to working with them in the months and years ahead,” Obama said in a statement.

[firedupdem]

1. Good. We need the best and brightest to fix this mess some

horribly dumb people created.

[terisan]

2. The "best and the brightest" gave us Vietnam and Harvard/Yale have been overrepresented in govt for

decades. The academic elite are a large part of the problem.

[nsd]

3. Yeah, I thought that too.

Halberstam meant that title to be ironic, so it's odd how it's used nowadays.

[Shiver]

7. So we should have the "worst and dumbest"?

I thought we didn't want to repeat the last eight years...

[Radical Activist]

8. They're often there for being the richest and most connected.

I get nervous when too many Harvard types are around. I hope and suspect that Obama knows to have more diverse viewpoints around him. Academics don't always have the best grasp on how things work in the real world.

[Number23]

4. Love how Harvard/Yale (home of GWBush) somehow = best/brightest!

lol

But I'm happy that Obama is interested in getting the most experienced folks to clean up this mess.

[Doctor_J]

5. Why not The Krug?

:shrug:

[Shiver]

6. If you mean Paul Krugman

He's stated that he doesn't want a job in the administration. He thinks he doesn't have the tempermant for it, and that he's happy where he currently is.