Holiday Recap

As has been widely reported, Bill Richardson has withdrawn his nomination for Secretary of Commerce. USA Today has press releases from both sides. The Politico reports that the Richardson camp wasn’t exactly forthright with details of the investigation. Meanwhile, Latino leaders are lobbying Barack Obama to appoint another Hispanic to his cabinet. (More after the jump.)

Here are the appointments & nominations that were announced over the holidays:

• Harvard physicist John Holdren as director of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy Management
• Marine biologist Jane Lubchenco as head of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. The Associated Press notes that the appointment signals a clear change in global warming policy.
• Holdren also will chair the Council of Advisers on Science and Technology along with former National Institutes of Health director and Nobel Prize-winning scientist Harold Varmus and Massachussetts Institute of Technology professor and human genome specialist Eric Lander.
• Alan Hoffman as the Vice President’s deputy Chief of staff. Hoffman is the COO for the Transition, and prior to that was a senior vice president for the University of California system.
• Antony “Tony” Blinken as national security advisor to the vice president. Blinken is staff director of the U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee. He's also a lead on the Transition's Executive Office of the President Agency Review Team
• Sudafi Henry as the vice president’s director of legislative affairs. Henry is an advisor to House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer.
• James B. Steinberg, deputy secretary of State. Steinberg is dean of the Lyndon B. Johnson School of Public Affairs and former deputy national security advisor to President Clinton. He had been rumored to be on the shortlist for National Security Advisor.
• Jacob Lew also as a deputy secretary of state. Lew is the COO of Citi Alternative Investments and former director of the OMB under President Clinton. He had been rumored to be on the shorlist to head the National Economic Council.
• Thomas E. Donilon as deputy national security advisor. Donilon is a partner at the law firm of O’Melveny & Myers and was assistant secretary of State for public affairs under President Clinton. Donilon was registered as a lobbyist for Fannie Mae as recently as 2005, and ABC reported that his lobbying portfolio involved defeating a federal probe into Fannie accounting irregularities.

While reports of liberal dissatisfaction with the political tilt of Obama’s prospective cabinet have been floating around for weeks, the Washington Post reports on a few names that have conservatives up in arms.

Obama quietly arrived in Washington last night in time for his daughters to attend their first day at Sidwell Friends School.