This is the Cato Daily Podcast for Wednesday, December 3rd, 2008.

I'm Caleb Brown.

Barack Obama's national security team is at long last assembled, but has he assembled a team that will oppose policies that Obama himself campaigned on.

Christopher Preble, Director of Foreign Policy Studies at the Cato Institute comments.

After a few weeks of speculation, Barack Obama announced that Hillary Clinton would be as Secretary of State, that Robert Gates is

going to stay on as Secretary of Defense. He announced that General James Jones,

a retired Marine Corps commandant, is going to be the National Security

Advisor.

Long time Foreign Policy Advisor, pretty much the senior Foreign Policy Advisor on the Obama

campaign, Susan Rice, is going to be the US ambassador

to the United Nations.

So those are the four kind of core foreign policy,

national security jobs, and then the two additional jobs were announced

at the same time, which are certainly related to counterterrorism efforts, is Arizona Governor

Janet Deppolitano,

it's going to be the Secretary of the Department

of Homeland Security, and Eric Holder,

who will be the Attorney General.

So that's the team.

Some people seem to be surprised by Gates, and I think that was more Barack Obama supporters

on the left who were bothered by it, but Gates has a few things to recommend him. He was an advocate for engagement with Iran and

where else does he stand? Iraq is, of course, the key issue.

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