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TIME - Man of the Year
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1221991.000
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1993-04-08
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THE WEEK, Page 17NATIONNo Longer Home Alone
Clinton announces the first round of appointees, and an eclectic
bunch it is
The question was tricky, and Bill Clinton realized that he
didn't have to answer it. Instead he gestured toward Texas
Senator Lloyd Bentsen to respond for him, adding with a laugh,
"The great thing about having a Cabinet . . ." The sentence was
incomplete, but the thought was clear: having chosen a team, the
President-elect was no longer alone.
Bentsen, 71 and chairman of the Senate Finance Committee,
was the capstone as Treasury Secretary. Accenting his desire to
work with Congress, Clinton tapped Leon Panetta, who chairs the
House Budget Committee, as OMB director. Wall Street was
represented by Robert Rubin as the head of the new National
Economic Council in the White House, and Roger Altman, a
Clinton college classmate, as Bentsen's deputy. Alice Rivlin,
former director of the Congressional Budget Office, will be
Panetta's deputy. The solid choices signaled Clinton's concern
with the deficit and need to reassure business.
Clinton's demeanor on Thursday was a bit stiff, perhaps
because those first nominees (save Altman) represented a
generation older than his own. How different his mood on Friday,
when he was surrounded by appointees whom he genuinely enjoys
and who fit his vow of "a new generation of leaders." Harvard
political economist Robert Reich, a Rhodes scholar with Clinton,
will be Secretary of Labor. Health and Human Services went to
Donna Shalala, chancellor of the University of Wisconsin and a
friend of Hillary Clinton's. Another woman becomes chairman of
the Council of Economic Advisers: Laura D'Andrea Tyson, a
Berkeley economist. And Carol Browner, a former aide to Al Gore,
will head the Environmental Protection Agency. Saturday was
another day for allies: as Secretary of Commerce, Democratic
National Committee Chairman Ron Brown, who aided Clinton with
black voters; and as White House chief of staff, Thomas ("Mack")
McLarty, a Clinton kindergarten classmate, gubernatorial
campaign treasurer and chief executive of a major natural-gas
utility, Arkla, Inc.
So far, Clinton shows scant need to surround himself with
yes-men and -women. Panetta has been skeptical about the
President-elect's oft promised middle-class tax cut, and Rivlin
departs from Clinton orthodoxy with her suggestion that states
should run public-works programs. Perhaps this will be a
combative Administration after all.