Obama Announces Job Plan

With a series of forceful actions in recent days, amid an almost unprecedented set of challenges, Barack Obama has taken an unusual step for a president-elect: attempting to alter the country's perilous course even before he takes office.

The most dramatic example came Saturday, when Obama announced a far more aggressive economic stimulus plan than previously promised - a two-year program to add 2.5 million jobs that he said represented "an early down payment on the type of reform my administration will bring to Washington."

That announcement was the latest indication that Obama has decided to use the transition period to influence events at a time of crisis, when the current administration appears powerless to stem a downward slide.

Obama has moved with unusual speed to fill most of his top White House staff positions. In recent days, he settled on a number of key Cabinet appointments designed to remove the uncertainty that has sparked turbulence in the financial markets and replace it with a sense of confidence in the administration-in-waiting.

He offered the all-important job of Treasury secretary to a pragmatic and experienced regulator, Tim Geithner, and reached out to former rival Hillary Rodham Clinton to tap an experienced figure known around the world as the country's top diplomat.

On Monday, the president-elect will emerge from two weeks of near-seclusion to stand shoulder-to-shoulder with his economics team for a news conference that aides hope will help restore calm to an anxious public.

Obama's aggressive posture marks an evolution inside his transition team since the immediate aftermath of the Nov. 4 election, when he pledged to live by a mantra that the country is led by "one president at a time."

With the financial markets and the public clearly looking for reassurance, Saturday's announcement - and Monday's news conference - signal that the transition has entered a phase in which the president-elect will become more visible and vocal.

ECONOMIC TEAM TAKING SHAPE

NEW YORK - Obama transition officials say the president-elect has chosen New York Federal Reserve President Timothy Geithner to be treasury secretary.

Obama has also named Lawrence Summers, a former treasury secretary under Bill Clinton and one-time president of Harvard University, to lead the National Economic Council.

Both men will appear with Obama at a press conference in Chicago on Monday.

Obama also named longtime spokesman Robert Gibbs as White House press secretary and reached outside his inner circle for the post of White House communications director. The director of communications will be Ellen Moran, the current executive director of the Washington group EMILY's List, an active supporter of Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton during the Democratic presidential primary.

The Associated Press