Jay Carney
29th White House Press Secretary
Incumbent
Assumed office February 11, 2011
President	Barack Obama
Deputy	Jennifer Psaki
Preceded by	Robert Gibbs
Personal details
Born	James Carney (1965-05-22) May 22, 1965 (age 47) Washington, D.C., U.S.
Political party	Democratic Party
Spouse(s)	Claire Shipman
Children	2
Alma mater	Yale University
Profession	Journalist
Website	White House Briefing Room

James "Jay" Carney (born May 22, 1965) is President Barack Obama's second White House Press Secretary.^[1] Prior to his appointment as Press Secretary, replacing Robert Gibbs, he was director of communications to Vice President Joe Biden.^[2] Carney previously served as Washington Bureau Chief for Time magazine, a post he held from September 2005 until December 2008, and as a regular contributor in the "roundtable" segment of ABC News' This Week with George Stephanopoulos.

Personal life and education[link]

Carney was raised in Northern Virginia, attended high school at The Lawrenceville School in New Jersey,^[3] and earned a B.A. in Russian and Eastern European Studies from Yale University, graduating cum laude, in 1987.^[4] He and his wife, Claire Shipman (a senior correspondent for ABC News)^[4], live in Washington, D.C., with their son and daughter.

Journalism career[link]

After being hired as a reporter for The Miami Herald in 1987, Carney joined Time magazine as its Miami Bureau Chief in 1989. Carney worked as a correspondent in Time's Moscow Bureau for three years, covering the collapse of the U.S.S.R.. He came to Washington in 1993 to report on the Bill Clinton White House.^[4]

He has written and reported about the presidency of George W. Bush, and was one of a handful of reporters who were aboard Air Force One with President Bush on September 11, 2001.^[4] Carney later won the 2003 Gerald R. Ford Prize for Distinguished Reporting on the Presidency.

Carney was Time's Washington Bureau Deputy Chief from 2003 to 2005, and Chief from September 2005 until December 2008. He was assigned to the magazine’s Washington Bureau in that tenure while also being able to write about politics and national affairs. Carney has also worked for CNN (another TIME Warner division) as a special correspondent.

Carney was one of the early mainstream journalists to take up the medium of blogging.

Work in Obama administration[link]

Jay Carney (middle right) in a White House staff meeting in the Oval Office, May 11, 2011

On December 15, 2008, Carney went from the private sector to public service as Director of Communications to Vice President Joe Biden.^[2][5]

In January 2011, Carney was selected to become the Obama administration's second White House Press Secretary.^[1] He was named the successor to previous White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs by White House Chief of Staff, William Daley.^[6][7] Carney was one of fourteen White House appointees announced by Daley on January 27.^[7]

He meets with the president daily, and can have four or five meetings a day to work on how to present ideas.

During a March 13, 2012, press briefing he revealed that his favorite band is Guided by Voices.^[8][9]

References[link]

External links[link]

• Jay Carney at WhoRunsGov at The Washington Post
• Appearances on C-SPAN
• Jay Carney on Charlie Rose

v t e White House Press Secretaries Akerson Joslin Early Daniels Ross Early Short Tubby Hagerty Salinger Reedy Moyers Christian Ziegler terHorst Nessen Powell Brady Speakes Fitzwater Myers McCurry Lockhart Siewert Fleischer McClellan Snow Perino Gibbs Carney

v t e Joe Biden's Office of the Vice President Position Appointee Position Appointee Chief of Staff to the Vice President Bruce Reed Chief of Staff to the Second Lady Catherine Russell Counsel to the Vice President Cynthia Hogan Director of Administration for the Office of the Vice President Moises Vela Counselor to the Vice President Mike Donilon Domestic Policy Adviser to the Vice President Terrell McSweeny Assistant to the Vice President for Intergovernmental Affairs and Public Liaison Evan Ryan Chief Economist and Economic Policy Adviser to the Vice President Jared Bernstein Assistant to the Vice President and Director of Communications Jay Carney Press Secretary to the Vice President Elizabeth Alexander Deputy Chief of Staff to the Vice President Alan Hoffman Deputy Press Secretary to the Vice President Annie Tomasini Deputy National Security Adviser to the Vice President Brian McKeon Director of Legislative Affairs Sudafi Henry Residence Manager and Social Secretary for the Vice President and Second Lady Carlos Elizondo Director of Communications for the Second Lady Courtney O’Donnell National Security Adviser to the Vice President Tony Blinken

Tapper at the White House on July 22, 2009.

Jacob Paul "Jake" Tapper (born March 12, 1969) is an American print and television journalist, currently the senior White House correspondent for ABC News in Washington, D.C. He was named to that position the day after election day 2008, having covered then-senator Barack Obama's presidential campaign.

He last interviewed Obama in July 2009 in Moscow, in an interview where the president expressed confidence that his foreign policy approach was starting to work and said regarding the stimulus package, "there's nothing that we would have done differently."^[1] That January, Tapper had broken the story of the tax troubles of then-Health and Human Services secretary nominee and former Senate majority leader Tom Daschle (D-SD),^[2] troubles that ultimately derailed Daschle's nomination.

From March through July 2010, Tapper was interim anchor of ABC's This Week, hosting the program until Christiane Amanpour became This Week's anchor.

Life and career[link]

Tapper was born in New York City and was raised in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. His mother, Anne Tapper, retired as a psychiatric nurse at Philadelphia Veterans Administration Medical Center. His father, Theodore S. "Ted" Tapper, a Dartmouth graduate, was a president of South Philadelphia Pediatrics, a group medical practice, and is an associate clinical professor of pediatrics at Jefferson Medical College, both in Philadelphia.^[3]

He attended Akiba Hebrew Academy and graduated Phi Beta Kappa and magna cum laude from Dartmouth College in 1991 with a B.A. in history modified by visual studies. He briefly attended graduate school at the University of Southern California School of Cinema-Television.^[4]

In 1992, Tapper was a campaign press secretary for Democratic congressional candidate Marjorie Margolies-Mezvinsky (PA-13) and later served as her congressional press secretary. ^[5]Tapper worked in public relations for Powell Tate, a Washington, D.C., public affairs firm run by Democrat Jody Powell and Republican Sheila Tate. He also worked briefly for Handgun Control Inc. (now the Brady Center to Prevent Gun Violence) in 1997. After writing many freelance stories, Tapper began his journalism career full time as a senior writer for the Washington City Paper from 1998 to 1999 and wrote about his experience going on a date with Monica Lewinsky in 1998 for that publication,^[6] in a story that skewered Washington's culture of scandal. He was the Washington correspondent for Salon.com from 1999 to 2002, where he was an early questioner of the Bush administration's claims, building upon prior claims made the Clinton administration, about Iraq having weapons of mass destruction.^[7] He has also contributed to GQ, The Weekly Standard, NPR's All Things Considered, The New York Times, and The Washington Post. In 2001 he hosted a TV show on CNN called Take Five in which young journalists and commentators discussed politics and pop culture. In 2002 he hosted a series of entertainment news specials on VH1 and in 2003 he hosted shows focused on independent film on the Sundance Channel. ABC News hired him in 2003. Tapper has been a frequent guest on the Imus in the Morning radio program.

He is the author of the books Down and Dirty: The Plot to Steal the Presidency on the 2000 Presidential election and Body Slam: The Jesse Ventura Story.

His comic strip Capitol Hell appeared in Roll Call from 1994 to 2003. He has also contributed cartoons to the American Spectator magazine, the Los Angeles Times, and The Philadelphia Inquirer. In 2006, he married Jennifer Marie Brown of St. Joseph, Missouri, who was a regional field manager in Washington, D.C. for Planned Parenthood Federation.

On July 6, 2009, former MSNBC television personality Dan Abrams launched a website service, Mediaite, reporting on media figures. The site ranks all TV-based journalists in America by influence. Tapper ranks, as of December 2010, at number one.^[8]

Tapper was considered one of the leading candidates to replace George Stephanopoulos as anchor of This Week. Stephanopoulos took over for Diane Sawyer, co-host of Good Morning America, when she assumed the role as anchor of World News.^[9] However, CNN's Christiane Amanpour was selected instead. Tapper served as the interim anchor until Amanpour took over the show on August 1, 2010.^[10]

Tapper has also appeared on the Judge John Hodgman podcast as guest bailiff, standing in for regular bailiff Jesse Thorn during the August 31, 2011 episode entitled "De Plane".

Personal Life[link]

Jake lives in Washington, D.C., with his wife, Jennifer and two children. The Tappers were married in 2006 in Jennifer's home state of Missouri.

References[link]

External links[link]

• ABC News biography
• Jake Tapper's blog -- Political Punch
• Jake Tapper on Twitter
• Jake Tapper's personal website -- lots of links to past stories from before ABC News
• Jake Tapper's Salon.com archives

Susan Rice
27th United States Ambassador to the United Nations
Incumbent
Assumed office January 22, 2009
President	Barack Obama
Secretary-General	Ban Ki-Moon
Preceded by	Zalmay Khalilzad
12th Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs of the United States
In office October 9, 1997 – January 20, 2001
President	Bill Clinton
Secretary	Madeleine Albright
Preceded by	George Moose
Succeeded by	Walter Kansteiner
Personal details
Born	Susan Elizabeth Rice (1964-11-17) November 17, 1964 (age 47) Washington, D.C., U.S.
Political party	Democratic Party
Spouse(s)	Ian Cameron (1992–present)
Children	2
Alma mater	Stanford University New College, Oxford

Susan Elizabeth Rice (born November 17, 1964) is an American diplomat, former think tank fellow, and civil servant. She is an American foreign policy advisor and United States Ambassador to the United Nations. Rice served on the staff of the National Security Council and as Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs during President Bill Clinton's second term. Rice was confirmed as UN Ambassador by the U.S. Senate by unanimous consent on January 22, 2009.^[1]

Early life and education[link]

Rice was born in Washington, D.C. ^[2] Her father, Emmett J. Rice (1919–2011), was a Cornell University economics professor and governor of the Federal Reserve System.^[2] Her mother is education policy scholar Lois Dickson Fitt, currently at the Brookings Institution. Her brother, John Rice, received an M.B.A. from Harvard Business School and is the founder of Management Leadership for Tomorrow (an organization committed to developing top minority talent for leadership roles in the business and non-profit sector). She is not related to Condoleezza Rice.^[3][4]

Rice was a three-sport athlete, student council president, and valedictorian at National Cathedral School in Washington, D.C., a private day girls' school.^[5] She played point guard in basketball and directed the offense, acquiring the nickname "Spo," short for "Sportin'."^[5]

Her parents always told her to "never use race as an excuse or advantage." As a young girl she says she "dreamed of becoming the first U.S. Senator from the District of Columbia."^[2] She also held "lingering fears" that her accomplishments would be diminished by people who attributed them to affirmative action.^[2]

Rice attended Stanford University, where she received a Truman Scholarship, and graduated with a B.A. in history in 1986. She was elected to Phi Beta Kappa.^[6][7]

Awarded a Rhodes Scholarship, Rice attended New College, Oxford, where she earned a M.Phil. in 1988 and D.Phil. in 1990. The Chatham House-British International Studies Association honored her dissertation titled "Commonwealth Initiative in Zimbabwe, 1979-1980: Implication for International Peacekeeping" as the UK's most distinguished in international relations.^[2][8]

Rice's classmates and professors at Oxford included advocates of the role of the United Nations and international law (Sir Adam Roberts, Benedict Kingsbury),^[9] of global economic governance and international economic cooperation (Ngaire Woods, Donald Markwell),^[10] and of a firm stance against Russian authoritarianism (Michael McFaul).^[11]

Marriage, family and early career[link]

Rice married ABC News producer Ian Officer Cameron (born in Victoria, British Columbia)^[12] in 1992 in Washington, DC at a chapel in The National Cathedral. They met as students at Stanford.^[13] They have two children.^{[5][6][14][15]}

Rice was a foreign policy aide to Michael Dukakis during the 1988 presidential election. She was a management consultant at McKinsey & Company, the global management consulting firm, in the early 1990s.^[16] While at McKinsey, Rice was affiliated with the firm's Toronto office where she and her husband lived for a time.^[17]

Susan Rice was viewed by many officials and diplomats as very bright, but also as inexperienced and inflexible.^[18] Rice was considered^{[by whom?]} "young, brilliant, and ambitious" and she worked to "integrate Africa in the global economy while at the same time aiming to increase U.S. national security";^[2] even as she was criticized by detractors who considered her "authoritarian, brash, and unwilling to consider opinions that differ[ed] from her own". Reportedly, the young Rice engaged in various disputes involving career diplomats within the State Department's African bureau.^[2][5]

Clinton administration roles[link]

Rice served in the Clinton administration in various capacities: at the National Security Council from 1993 to 1997; as Director for International Organizations and Peacekeeping from 1993 to 1995; and as Special Assistant to the President and Senior Director for African Affairs from 1995 to 1997.

At the time of the 1994 Rwandan Genocide, Rice reportedly said, "If we use the word 'genocide' and are seen as doing nothing, what will be the effect on the November [congressional] election?" Rice subsequently acknowledged the mistakes made at the time and felt that a debt needed repaying.^[19] The inability or failure of the Clinton administration to do anything about the genocide would inform her later views on possible military interventions.^[20] She would later say of the experience: "I swore to myself that if I ever faced such a crisis again, I would come down on the side of dramatic action, going down in flames if that was required."^[21]

Rice supported the multinational force that invaded Zaire from Rwanda in 1996 and overthrew dictator Mobutu Sese Seko, saying privately that "Anything's better than Mobutu." Others criticized the U.S. complicity in the violation of the Congo's borders as destabilizing and dangerous.^[18]

In a 2002 op-ed piece in the Washington Post, former Ambassador to Sudan Timothy M. Carney and news contributor Mansoor Ijaz implicated Rice and counter-terrorism czar Richard Clarke in missing an opportunity to neutralize Osama bin Laden while he was still in Sudan in 1996. They write that Sudan and Secretary of State Madeleine Albright were ready to cooperate on intelligence potentially leading to Bin Laden, but that Rice and Clarke persuaded National Security Advisor Sandy Berger to overrule Albright.^[22] Similar allegations have been made by Vanity Fair contributing editor David Rose^[23] and Richard Miniter, author of Losing Bin Laden, in a November 2003 interview with World.^[24]

While the writings of Carney, Ijaz, Rose and Miniter each claim that Sudan offered to turn Bin Laden over to the US and that Rice was central in the decision not to accept the offer, The National Commission on Terrorist Attacks on the United States (the 9-11 Commission) concluded in part "Sudan's minister of defense, Fatih Erwa, has claimed that Sudan offered to hand Bin Laden over to the United States. The Commission has found no credible evidence that this was so. Ambassador Carney had instructions only to push the Sudanese to expel Bin Laden. Ambassador Carney had no legal basis to ask for more from the Sudanese since, at the time, there was no indictment outstanding."^[25]

Secretary of State Madeleine Albright has been a longtime mentor and family friend to Rice. Albright urged Clinton to appoint Rice as Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs in 1997.^[2] Rice was not the first choice of Congressional Black Caucus leaders, who considered Rice a member of "Washington's assimilationist black elite".^[2] At a confirmation hearing chaired by Senator Jesse Helms, Rice, who attended the hearing along with her infant son, whom she was then nursing, made a great impression on Senators from both parties and "sailed through the confirmation process".^[2] Rice was Assistant Secretary for African Affairs until Clinton left office in 2001.

On July 7, 1998, while serving as Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs, Rice was a member of an American delegation to visit detained Nigerian President-Elect Basorun M.K.O. Abiola. During this meeting, Abiola had a heart attack^[26] which caused his death.

Business and think tank activities[link]

Rice was managing director and principal at Intellibridge from 2001 to 2002.^[27][28] In 2002, she joined the Brookings Institution as senior fellow in the Foreign Policy and Global Economy and Development program. At Brookings, she focused on U.S. foreign policy, weak and failing states, the implications of global poverty, and transnational threats to security. During the 2004 presidential campaign, Rice served as a foreign policy adviser to John Kerry.

Rice went on leave from the Brookings Institution to serve as a senior foreign policy advisor to Senator Barack Obama in his 2008 presidential campaign. On November 5, 2008, Rice was named to the advisory board of the Obama-Biden Transition Project.^[29]

U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations[link]

On December 1, 2008, Rice was nominated by President-elect Obama to be the U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations,^[30][31] a position which he also upgraded to cabinet level.^[32] Rice is the second youngest^[32] and first African American woman US Representative to the UN.^[33] Dr. Rice has announced she will have both a transition team in place in New York and in Washington, DC at the State Department to be headed by US Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton.

The 2010 National Security Strategy was referred to by Rice as a "dramatic departure" from its predecessor.^[34]

In light of the 2011 Libyan civil war Ambassador Rice gave a statement following a White House meeting with President Obama and U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon as the United States increased pressure on the Libyan leader to give up power. Rice made clear that the United States and the international community saw only one choice for Gaddafi and his aides: step down from power or face significant consequences. Rice offered some of the toughest rhetoric toward Gaddafi, blasting his denials of atrocities against his own citizens as “frankly, delusional.” “It only underscores how unfit he is to lead, and how disconnected he is from reality,” Rice said. Rice praised the U.N. Security Council for the unanimous resolution it passed that called for the freezing of Libyan government assets and military aid to the country. It also referred all claims of abuse of the Libyan people directly to the International Criminal Court.^[35]

Together with National Security Council figure Samantha Power, who already supported military intervention, and Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, who came to support it, the three overcame internal opposition from Defense Secretary Robert Gates, security advisor Thomas Donilon, and counterterrorism advisor John Brennan, and the administration backed U.N. action to impose the no-fly zone and authorize other military actions as necessary.^[20][36] On 17 March 2011 Rice voted for United Nations Security Council Resolution 1973 which sanctioned a Libyan no-fly zone. The UK, France and Lebanon voted for the resolution while Brazil, Germany and India, and permanent members China and Russia both abstained. Rice and Clinton played major roles in getting the Security Council to approve this resolution,^[20][37] Clinton said that same day that establishing a no-fly zone over Libya would require the bombing of air defenses, as the U.S. seeks broad action to protect civilians fighting Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi's regime. Rice said that "We are interested in a broad range of actions that will effectively protect civilians and increase the pressure on the Gaddafi regime to halt the killing and to allow the Libyan people to express themselves in their aspirations for the future freely and peacefully,"^[38]

On March 29, 2011, Rice said that the Obama administration had not ruled out arming the rebels fighting to oust Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi. In an interview on ABC's Good Morning America program, Rice said there was no indication that Gaddafi was prepared to leave power without continued pressure from the International community. Referring to reports that members of Gaddafi's inner circle were reaching out to the West, she said: "We will be more persuaded by actions rather than prospects or feelers. ... The message for Gaddafi and those closest to him is that history is not on their side. Time is not on their side. The pressure is mounting.^[39] In January 2012 after the Russian and Chinese veto of a UNSC resolution, Rice strongly condemned both countries for vetoing a resolution calling on Bashar al-Assad to step down. "They put a stake in the heart of efforts to resolve this conflict peacefully," Rice said on CNN. "The tragedy is for the people of Syria. We the United States are standing with the people of Syria. Russia and China are obviously with Assad." She added that "Russia and China will, I think, come to regret this action". "They have ... by their veto dramatically increased the risk of greater violence, and you've seen manifestations of that."^[40] In her words, "the United States is disgusted that a couple of members of this Council continue to prevent us from fulfilling our sole purpose."^[41]

Affiliations[link]

Susan Rice serves on the boards of several organizations, including the National Democratic Institute, the U.S. Fund for UNICEF,^[27] board of directors of the Atlantic Council,^[42] advisory board of Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies at Stanford University,^[43] the board of directors of Bureau of National Affairs,^[44] board of directors of Partnership for Public Service,^[14] the Beauvoir National Cathedral Elementary School, and past member of the Internews Network's board of directors.^[45][46]

She is also a member of the Council on Foreign Relations and the Aspen Strategy Group.^[16][47]

Awards and honors[link]

• Rice was inducted into Stanford's Black Alumni Hall of Fame in 2002.^[8]
• Served as Baccalaureate Speaker, at Spelman College (Atlanta, GA), in May 2010.
• Served as the Commencement Speaker, at Stanford University (Palo Alto, CA), in June 2010.
• Served as the Commencement Speaker, at the University of Miami (Coral Gables, FL), in May 2012.

Susan Rice delivered the commencement speech at Spelman College and received an honorary doctorate in

References[link]

External links[link]

• United States Mission to the United Nations
• Susan Rice on Facebook
• Susan Rice on Twitter
• Article archive at the Brookings Institution
• Susan Rice at WhoRunsGov at The Washington Post
• Appearances on C-SPAN
• Susan Rice on Charlie Rose
• Susan Rice at the Internet Movie Database
• Susan Rice collected news and commentary at The New York Times
• Works by or about Susan Rice in libraries (WorldCat catalog)
• Susan Rice at the Notable Names Database

Articles

• The Ethiopian-Eritrean War: U.S. Policy Options Before the House Committee on International Relations, Africa Subcommittee, May 25, 1999. Retrieved 2008-05-13.
• Martha Brant, Into Africa, Stanford Magazine, Jan-Feb 2000
• Fox News Interview with Laura Ingraham (video)
• Interview with Dave Ross on MyNorthwest.com (audio)

v t e United States Ambassadors to the United Nations Stettinius Austin Lodge Wadsworth Stevenson Goldberg Ball Wiggins Yost Bush Scali Moynihan Scranton Young McHenry Kirkpatrick Walters Pickering Perkins Albright Richardson Holbrooke Negroponte Danforth Bolton Khalilzad Rice

v t e Current members of the Cabinet of the United States Obama Biden Bryson Chu Clinton Donovan Duncan Geithner Holder Jacksonc Kirkc Kruegerc LaHood Lewc Millsc Napolitano Panetta Ricec Salazar Sebelius Solis Shinseki Vilsack Zientsca c - cabinet-level; a - acting

v t e Cabinet of President Barack Obama (since 2009)   Cabinet Secretary of State Hillary Clinton (2009–present) Secretary of the Treasury Timothy Geithner (2009–present) Secretary of Defense Robert Gates (2009–2011) Leon Panetta (2011–present) Attorney General Eric Holder (2009–present) Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar (2009–present) Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack (2009–present) Secretary of Commerce Gary Locke (2009–2011) John Bryson (2011–present) Secretary of Labor Hilda Solis (2009–present) Secretary of Health and Human Services Kathleen Sebelius (2009–present) Secretary of Education Arne Duncan (2009–present) Secretary of Housing and Urban Development Shaun Donovan (2009–present) Secretary of Transportation Ray LaHood (2009–present) Secretary of Energy Steven Chu (2009–present) Secretary of Veterans Affairs Eric Shinseki (2009–present) Secretary of Homeland Security Janet Napolitano (2009–present)   Cabinet-level Vice President Joe Biden (2009–present) White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel (2009–2010) William Daley (2011–2012) Jacob Lew (2012–present) Administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency Lisa Jackson (2009–present) Director of the Office of Management and Budget Peter Orszag (2009–2010) Jacob Lew (2010–2012) Trade Representative Ron Kirk (2009–present) Ambassador to the United Nations Susan Rice (2009–present) Chair of the Council of Economic Advisers Christina Romer (2009–2010) Austan Goolsbee (2010–2011) Alan Krueger (2011–present) Director of the Central Intelligence Agency Leon Panetta (2009–2011) David Petraeus (2011–present) Administrator of the Small Business Administration Karen Mills (2012–present)* * took office in 2009, raised to cabinet-rank in 2012 See also: Confirmations of Barack Obama's Cabinet