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'The Best And Brightest'

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The Tampa Tribune

Published: December 2, 2008

"I assembled this team because I'm a strong believer in strong personalities and strong opinions. I think that's how the best decisions are made. One of the dangers in the White House, based on my reading of history, is that you get wrapped up in group think and everybody agrees with everything and there's no discussion and there are no dissenting views."

President-elect Barack Obama

"The triumvirate of Gates, Clinton and Jones to lead Obama's national security team instills great confidence at home and abroad and further strengthens the growing respect for the president-elect's courage and ability to exercise sound judgment in selecting the best and the brightest to implement our nation's security policies."

Sen. John Warner, R-Va.

"President-elect Obama has chosen a terrific national security team to protect our security and help restore America's rightful place in the world."

Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass., who will become chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee

"You know the old phrase, 'You keep your friends close and your enemies closer?' How can she run for president in 2012? She'd have to run against the incumbent and be critical of him - the one who made her secretary of state."

Rush Limbaugh, a conservative radio pundit who has seldom been a fan of Hillary Clinton

"She's Janet Napolitano a very pragmatic, practical person who understands that enforcement is really important, but that ... we have to have a way for people to come and go legally and serve the needs of our country in terms of labor and immigration."

James Ziglar, the last commissioner of the U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service before Congress shifted its functions to the newly created Department of Homeland Security in 2003

"He'll be a very a constructive and steady force for a Department of Justice that is suffering from very low morale now."

Phil Heymann, Eric Holder's predecessor as a deputy attorney general under President Clinton

"The two of them Hillary Clinton and Joe Biden will be a dynamic team in terms of increasing the treatment around the world of women as human beings."

Kim Gandy, president, National Organization for Women

"Jones works friendly until friendly doesn't get it done anymore and then you're dealing with a great big guy you really don't want to be on the opposite side of."

Retired Army Lt. Gen. Jay Garner, who first met James Jones during a 1991 humanitarian relief operation in northern Iraq

"Susan Rice has learned a lesson from what happened in Rwanda and, together with the incoming Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, she cannot turn a blind eye on anything happening in Africa."

James Kimonyo, Rwanda's ambassador to the United States

A wire report

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