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"people Feel Exploited"

Foreign Policy's Laura Rozen has an excellent look at foreign policy hands who risked their careers to support and advise Obama but now fret they may wind up with no job to show for it.

One unexpected culprit--the cold efficiency of email communication:

A third advisor said the indirect way that foreign policy advice and talking points was funneled to Obama's Chicago political operation via Rice and Lake means that very few actually had any face time with the president-elect's inner circle. Rice and Lake, meantime, have gone off the radar, and are not returning phone calls and e-mails, several advisors said.

"It's not just that it was all run through Susan and Tony, who couldn't protect people, although that's part of it," the third foreign policy advisor said. "It's that it was all done by Internet, which was both a strength and weakness. No one knows each other by face."

There are still plenty of foreign policy jobs to fill, of course, and many of these nervous people may wind up with good ones. But there's no question that sending Hillary Clinton to State--with her retinue of loyal Clintonites--burns up many a choice job coveted by these Obama advisors. 

--Michael Crowley