Obama team for gathering is bipartisan

CHICAGO (AP) — Barack Obama has authorized former Republican Rep. Jim Leach and former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright, a Democrat, to represent him among world leaders attending the global economic summit in Washington this weekend.

The president-elect is not attending the gathering of delegations from 20 nations and won’t meet with foreign dignitaries who do. He is deferring to President Bush and avoiding putting himself in a situation where he might be seen as trying to represent the United States before his Jan. 20 inauguration.

Obama’s transition team said Leach, who endorsed Obama during the campaign, and Albright will mainly be listeners on the periphery of the meetings.

Albright was secretary of state during the Clinton administration. Leach spent 30 years in Congress before being defeated by a Democrat in 2006.