James Steinberg to be appointed Deputy Secretary of State under Hillary Clinton

By GottaLaff

Via Steve Clemons:

[James Steinberg, Dean of the LBJ School of Public Policy at UT Austin]-- who has been patient, careful, and never leaked a thing to anyone about his position (despite my best efforts) -- got the white smoke signal that he gets the Deputy slot. [...]

Steinberg, who used to serve as Vice President of Brookings running its foreign policy division, was one of the first leading national security Democrats to call for withdrawal from Iraq because of the deterioration of America's moral credibility in that war. [...]

During the campaign, one of the things few noted was that Steinberg remained distant from all of the presidential contenders. He offered private counsel to all of them -- but not on an exclusive basis. When Obama won the race, Steinberg made himself more fully available.

Steinberg was not in the Hillary Clinton camp -- nor in the Obama camp, which gives him some latitude and legitimacy in helping to squelch down the drama that still persists between those who were loyal to Hillary before they were loyal to Obama.