The high-profile national security team Barack Obama formally announced on Monday continues a trend in which the president-elect has shifted toward the center.

Besides picking Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.) as his secretary of State nominee, the foreign policy team includes a Republican in Defense Secretary Robert Gates, whom Obama has asked to remain at the helm at the Pentagon. 

The team seems to represent a departure from Obama’s rhetoric during the campaign, when he called for complete withdrawal of U.S. forces from Iraq within 16 months of his inauguration. During the primary campaign, advisers to Clinton, Obama's main opponent, said any firm date for withdrawal would be irresponsible, and the candidate herself spoke of continuing certain combat missions in Iraq. Gates said earlier this year that the Pentagon is making withdrawal plans, but has warned against a precipitous exit.

Obama had already taken steps that could be seen as moves to the center. 

As his running mate, Obama selected Sen. Joe Biden (D-Del.), who like Clinton voted to authorize the Iraq war. 

Obama’s economic team includes a number of officials with ties to former President Bill Clinton’s administration. His choice to lead the Treasury Department, Timothy Geithner, had a heavy hand in decisions President Bush’s economic team has made during the financial crisis. 

Obama also picked a centrist, Rep. Rahm Emanuel (D-Ill.) to serve as his chief of staff. 

Possibly with an eye on deflecting criticism from the left, Obama emphasized that he, and not his Cabinet, would be calling the shots. 

“I'm going to be welcoming a vigorous debate inside the White House. But understand that I will be setting policy,” he said during a Chicago press conference where he made the announcements.

At the same time, he said Clinton, Gates and Jones "would not have agreed to be part of my administration, and I would not have asked them to be a part of my administration, if we did not share a core vision.”

Asked whether Gates's reappointment to head the Pentagon satisfied his requirement for including a Republican in his Cabinet, Obama said Gates's party affiliation had nothing to do with his qualifications. 

“The point here is that I didn't go around checking people's political registration," Obama joked. 

So far, liberals who supported troop withdrawals from Iraq are accepting Obama's promises that the buck stops with him.

Top writers at DailyKos, MyDD, OpenLeft and other well-trafficked sites have barely addressed the nominations aside from pasting news clips, while some, including Markos Moulitsas, founder of DailyKos, have even pushed back against assertions that they aren't happy with the Clinton pick.

Retired Lt. Gen. Robert Gard, who has called for troop withdrawals, said the job of a Cabinet is to set forth options for the president, who still makes the final decisions. 

Cabinet officers should "have an ability to listen. They have analytical skills. They seek options, not just confirmation of their predispositions, and they judge accordingly," said Gard, head of the Center for Arms Control and Non-Proliferation. "The team that was announced by the president-elect this morning, I think they have that."