World | Posted on Nov 07, 2008 at 01:04pm IST

Obama set to pick Treasury Secretary on Sat

Washington: The president-elect of the USA, Barack Obama has already begun the transition process by naming Democrat Congressman Rahm Emanuel as his chief of staff.

Obama may himself keep a low profile he was in Chicago, at the FBI's office for his first top-secret intelligence briefing.

"I'm going to have lunch. You guys should go have lunch too. That's all I'll say," said Rahm Emanuel after his meeting was done.

Congressman Emanuel is known for an outwardly brash manner that carefully camouflages his political savvy.

He was the key strategist in both terms of the Democrats at the White House. He was a close Clinton aide and now will ally with Obama in his term at the highest office in America.

An investment banker and then a Chicago Congressman, Emanuel helped Democrats retake the House of Representatives in 2006.

Republican House minority leader John Boehner, quite unkindly calls him "an ironic choice for a president-elect who has promised to change Washington, make politics more civil and govern from the center."

But many of Emanuel's own party men laud the pick.

"It touches all of the critical elements it seems to me in the beginning that kind o f transition we'd like to have. So I think it's a great choice," said Connecticut Senator Christopher Dodd.

The new administration's top priority is to respond to the financial crisis that threatens to devour American economy.

The president-elect meets with with his top economic advisors on Saturday.

Obama will hold a press conference after the briefing and also probably declare the name of his Treasury Secretary.

The names under consideration are former Clinton Treasury Secretary Larry Summers and Head of New York Fed, Tim Geitner.

Summers is considered a brilliant economist but is known to be prone to making controversial remarks.

Geitner too is respected in academic circles and on Wall Street but is relatively an outsider to Washington.

(For updates you can share with your friends, follow IBNLive on Facebook, Twitter and Google+)

Comments (0)

All comments will be published after moderation

Trending Searches

#Narendra Modi#Warren Buffett#Saudi Arabia#Whitney Houston#Priyanka Chopra#Mobile Technology#HIV#Salman Khurshid#Prakash Rai#Narendra Modi#Saudi Arabia#Salman Khurshid#TRS#Manipur#ASEAN#Pinarayi Vijayan#Rahul Gandhi#Praveen Reddy