Obama Fills Key OMB Posts

By Anne E. Kornblut
Away from all the inaugural pomp, the Obama administration is continuing to fill key posts -- including, on Monday, at the Office of Management and Budget, where several new senior aides were installed.

Jeffrey Lieberman, a special assistant for economic policy in the Clinton administration who now teaches at Harvard's Kennedy School, was tapped as the next executive associate director; Steve Kosiak, vice president at the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments, will serve as associate director for Defense and International Affairs; Robert Gordon, a senior fellow at the Center for American Progress and a former Kerry campaign adviser, will be the associate director for Education, Income Maintenance and Labor; Xavier de Souza Briggs, a professor at MIT, will be the associate director for General Government Programs; and Preeta Bansal, a partner at Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom, will be general counsel. Kenneth Baer, the co-founder of the progressive quarterly "Democracy: A Journal of Ideas" -- widely read by members of the incoming administration -- will serve as associate director for communications and strategic planning.