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US President-Elect Appoints Rice, Gonzales
US President-elect George W. Bush Sunday, December 17, nominated Stanford University scholar Condoleezza Rice as his national security adviser and Hispanic Justice of the Texas Supreme Court Al Gonzales as chief White House counsel.
Bush, who has promised to assemble an ethnically and politically diverse Cabinet, nominated former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Colin Powell as secretary of state on Saturday.
Like Powell, Rice, 46-year-old African American, served in the administration of Bush's father, President George Bush. Powell was chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff while Rice served as an expert on the Soviet Union in the National Security Council.
Gonzales, 45, served as gubernatorial counsel during Bush's first term as Texas governor.
Bush also named his former Campaign Communications Director Karen Hughes to the position of counselor to the president.
"Rice is not only a brilliant person, she is an experienced person, she is a good manager, I trust her judgment, America will find that she is a wise person," Bush said when speaking to reporters in Austin, Texas.
The appointments show that "people who work hard and make the right decisions in life can achieve anything they want in America, " Bush said.
After being named, Rice said, "It's a wonderful time for the United States in foreign policy, a time when markets and democracy are spreading and our values are affirmed around the world and yet it's a time of challenge."
The appointments were announced by the president-elect shortly before he was to depart for Washington to meet congressional leaders from both the Republican and Democratic parties, pay calls on President Bill Clinton and Vice President Al Gore, the Democrat he defeated in the presidential race, and interview prospective Cabinet choices.
Bush, who takes office on January 20, claimed the U.S. presidency on December 13 after a gracious concession by Gore. His victory was sealed on December 12 by the U.S. Supreme Court which blocked any chance of further ballot recounts in Florida State.
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