Obama to Name Goolsbee to Head Council 09/10 05:50

   WASHINGTON (AP) -- President Barack Obama has chosen one of his longtime 
economic advisers, Austan Goolsbee, to be the chairman of his Council of 
Economic Advisers, a White House official said.

   Obama was expected to announce the appointment at the beginning of his news 
conference on Friday. The official spoke Thursday on condition of anonymity 
because the formal announcement had not been made.

   Goolsbee, a University of Chicago professor of economics, is one of three 
economists on the council. He already has been confirmed to the council by the 
Senate.

   He replaces Christina Romer, who left the administration last week to return 
to her teaching position at the University of California, Berkeley.

   ABC reported late Thursday that Goolsbee would be named to the post, a key 
position as Obama focuses on the economy ahead of November elections. Voters 
may be in the mood to blame the president's Democratic Party over the sour 
economy and unemployment.

   Goolsbee, 41, was Obama's senior economic policy adviser during the 2008 
presidential campaign. A graduate of Yale and the Massachusetts Institute of 
Technology, he is considered to be a centrist economist.

   He gained unwanted visibility during the campaign after a Canadian consulate 
memo asserted that Goolsbee privately told Canadian officials that Obama's 
public statements on trade were "political positioning." Goolsbee disputed the 
claim.


(CZ)