Retired General Eric Shinseki will be the new Veterans Affairs secretary, President-elect Barack Obama announced Sunday, the 67th anniversary of the attack on Pearl Harbor.

Shinseki, himself wounded in Vietnam, was the first Asian-American to rise to the rank of four-star general. He also served as Army Chief of Staff, the highest ranking Army officer, but ran into trouble when he raised doubts about strategy in Iraq, including saying that many more troops would be needed, a position many now consider prophetic.

President-elect Barack Obama said Monday he will nominate New York Sen. Hillary Clinton to be his secretary of state. Obama defeated Clinton in a long and bitter Democratic primary before winning election in November.

He also said that Defense Secretary Robert Gates will stay on in the new cabinet, despite their previous differences over strategy in Iraq.

The president-elect also confirmed earlier reports that he has selected Eric Holder to be attorney general and Arizona's Democratic Gov. Janet Napolitano to be secretary of homeland security.

President-elect Barack Obama said Tuesday he has named Peter Orzag to be the director of the Office of Management and Budget in the new administration.

Orzag, currently head of the Congressional Budget Office, must be confirmed by the Senate. He had previously served in the Clinton White House as an adviser on economic policy.
OMB coordinates the construction of the federal budget and plays a key role in determining the shape of federal regulations.

President-elect Barack Obama as expected has named Robert Gibbs to be White House press secretary. Gibbs had worked as Obama's senate communication director and was a senior adviser in the presidential campaign.

The president-elect is holding his second news conference since the election Monday afternoon. He is expected to name New York Federal Reserve Bank President Timothy Geithner as Treasury secretary, along with other members of his economic team, The Washington Post reported.

A brief recap of who supposedly is on first, etc., in the forthcoming Obama cabinet:

• Secretary of State -- Hillary Clinton
• Attorney General -- Eric Holder
• Health and Human Services -- former Sen. Tom Daschle
• Homeland Security -- Arizona Gov. Janet Napolitano
• Commerce -- Hyatt Hotels heiress (and chief Obama fundraiser) Penny Pritzker

Note: None of these has yet been nominated.

President-elect Barack Obama met in Chicago today with Sen. John McCain. It was the first meeting between the two since Obama handily defeated the Republican from Arizona for the presidency two weeks ago.

After the meeting the two pledged in a formal statement to, " ...launch a new era of reform where we take on government waste and bitter partisanship in Washington in order to restore trust in government, and bring back prosperity and opportunity for every hardworking American family."

If you are interested in a job in the Obama administration, you'll have to fill in an extensive questionnaire , The New York Times reports. Here is a PDF of the questionnaire (on The Times' Web site).

And Vice President-elect Joe Biden has named a chief of staff, Ron Klain, who filled the same role for Vice President Al Gore. Fun fact: Klain was played by Kevin Spacey in the HBO movie, "Recount," about the 2000 post-election fight in Florida.

John Podesta, who is directing the transition effort for President-elect Obama, told reporters today that the transition will cost about $12 million, and of that, about $7 million will be raised from private sources. Podesta said the same ethics rules will apply, meaning Obama will not accept money from federally registered lobbyists, corporations or political action committees.