Obama fends off criticism on choice of aides

US President-elect Barack Obama denied today he was bringing too many Washington insiders of the Clinton era into his administration.

Mr Obama, who has vowed almost daily to bring change to America for the past two years, has appointed several well-established Washington figures over the past two weeks as he forms his so-called “team of rivals” and is widely expected to name more in the near future.

But, as he held his third press conference in three days in Chicago, he refuted allegations that so many old names would prevent him from bringing about the change he has promised Americans.

“What we are going to do is combine experience with fresh thinking,” he said.

“But understand where the vision for change comes from first and foremost – it comes from me, that’s my job, to provide a vision in terms of where we are going and to make sure then that my team is implemented.”

He said his advisory board was “a cross-section of opinions that in some ways reinforces conventional wisdom, in some ways breaks with orthodoxy in all sorts of ways”.

“That’s the kind of discussion that we’re going to want,” he said.

“We want ideas from everybody.

“But what I don’t want to do is to somehow suggest that because you served in the last Democratic administration that you are somehow barred from serving again, because we need people who are going to be able to hit the ground running.”

Today, the president-elect named 81-year-old Paul Volcker, who has already served under five US presidents, as chair of a new economic recovery advisory board which will be tasked with “ensuring the government is held accountable for delivering results”.

Former Senate majority leader Tom Daschle is leading Mr Obama’s working group on healthcare, and is expected to be named as health and human resources secretary, and Clinton treasury secretary Larry Summers was named director of the national economic council on Monday.

Former first lady Hillary Clinton, Mr Obama’s former rival, is expected to become secretary of state and current Defence Secretary Robert Gates is expected to remain in his post.