First Read recaps the changes to President Obama’s cabinet.

Here are the cabinet secretaries who are remaining: Napolitano (DHS), Duncan (Education), Vilsack (Agriculture), Holder (Justice), Sebelius (HHS), and Shinseki (Veterans Affairs).

Here are the cabinet members leaving, plus their nominated replacements: Clinton at State (John Kerry nominated), Panetta at Defense (Chuck Hagel nominated), Geithner at Treasury (Jack Lew nominated), Solis at Labor and Jackson at EPA.

Josh Feldman: “I have to ask why this has become the big controversy that it has been. Most people who voted for Obama, I would expect, care more about the qualifications of his political appointees than their race or gender.”

“With the exception of Hillary Clinton, all of Obama’s ‘guy’ nominees thus far will be replacing other white guys. And, if you’ll recall, Obama’s first choice for his second-term Secretary of State was a black woman … But if you’ve been paying attention to the news at all since September, you’ll remember exactly why Rice’s appointment didn’t exactly work out … We have two Asian Cabinet members: Energy Secretary Steven Chu and Veterans Affairs Secretary Eric Shinseki. Attorney General Eric Holder, an African-American, is staying on for Obama’s second term. Also staying on are Kathleen Sebelius at Health and Human Services and Janet Napolitano at Homeland Security. Do these people not count? … There is, of course, one more reason why this whole thing is completely ridiculous. Obama still has Commerce and Labor secretaries to appoint.”

John Dickerson: “It’s unfair to charge Obama with a gender bias in his Cabinet picks. But if anyone is to blame, it’s the president himself … If people are now drawing grand conclusions based on a few staff picks, it’s because the Obama team helped train them to do so.”

Fortune: “As President Obama approaches his second inaugural, one thing has become clear: The 2008 peacemaker politician has emerged as a skilled guerrilla warrior. If Bill Clinton’s tactical legacy was disarming his opponents by stealing their ideas — welfare reform, ‘personal responsibility,’ cutting spending — Obama’s may be his skill at dividing to conquer his Republican foes.”

“Conservatives were once the reigning champs of honing in and exploiting an opponent’s weakness. Under this President, Lee Atwater’s Sun-Tzu quoting descendants have met their match.”

Politico: “In reality, no one. But there are a few emerging clues on staffers who would assume Plouffe’s multiple roles as the top in-house adviser on communications, messaging, political strategy and freelance Obama-whispering. Think Plouffe-by-committee.”

“Several administration officials tell me that current Communications Director Dan Pfeiffer… is likely to get an enhanced role sometime soon, and would possibly take over the messaging, comms and sounding board role that Plouffe occupied… It’s less clear who will take over the other half of Plouffe’s brief — since Obama shuttered the White House political office halfway through his first term.”

With many ridiculing Treasury Secretary nominee Jack Lew’s loopy signature — which will soon adorn all U.S. currency if he’s confirmed by the U.S. Senate — Yahoo News unveils the Jack Lew signature generator.

The reshuffling of President Obama’s Cabinet gained speed when Labor Secretary Hilda Solis announced her resignation, the Washington Post reports.

But the White House said three others, including Attorney General Eric Holder, Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius and Veterans Affairs Secretary Eric Shinseki would remain in their posts.

The Week: Why is Holder staying on?

President Obama will nominate White House chief of staff Jack Lew for Treasury secretary as soon as Thursday, Politico reports.

“In doing so, Obama is throwing Lew straight into the middle of an increasingly nasty budget war, the likes of which Washington hasn’t seen since the mid-1990s.”

“Lew should be prepared for this type of fiscal and political environment, though — he helped President Bill Clinton strike the 1997 balanced budget accord as a top official at the Office of Management and Budget, the agency he has since run for both presidents. And Lew played an important role in the contentious 2011 debt ceiling debate.”

The downside, according to Kevin Roose: Lew’s terrible signature would be on our money.

The Week: The right choice?

New York Times: “About 43 percent of Mr. Obama’s appointees have been women, about the same proportion as in the Clinton administration, but up from the roughly one-third appointed by George W. Bush… But Mr. Obama’s recent nominations raised concern that women were being underrepresented at the highest level of government and would be passed over for top positions.”

USA Today: Obama sticks to friends for top posts.

Paul Waldman: “If it is going to happen, history tells us we should be on the lookout starting about a year from now, since Year Six of a two-term presidency has been a fruitful time for scandal. Bill Clinton’s affair with Monica Lewinsky came to light in January 1998, at the start of Clinton’s sixth year in office. Iran-Contra was revealed in November 1986, in the sixth year of Reagan’s presidency. The Watergate break-in occurred in 1972 while Richard Nixon was running for re-election, but the revelations played out slowly enough that he didn’t resign until his sixth year in office, in August 1974.”

National Journal: “During the 2008 campaign, then-candidate Barack Obama spoke of his admiration for President Lincoln’s Team of Rivals approach to picking his Cabinet, referring to the book by Doris Kearns Goodwin. Obama later selected his No. 1 Democratic rival, Hillary Rodham Clinton, as his secretary of State. But what Obama is now assembling is more of a Team of Mentors, a group of old lions of the Senate who, along with Biden, helped to shape Obama’s worldview during his brief stint as a freshman senator before he ran for president.”

President Obama “intends to take a confrontational approach with Republicans in future economic battles by using the same campaign-style events the White House saw as effective in the ‘fiscal-cliff’ fight,” The Hill reports.

“Many in Obama’s party believe that he got the upper hand in the recent deal to avoid the mixture of across-the-board tax hikes and spending cuts, and that the aggressive approach helped build his public case.”

The reasons: “his successful reelection; polling suggesting public support for many of his positions; and division among Republicans on Capitol Hill.”

President Obama is expected to name former Sen. Chuck Hagel (R-NE) as his choice for defense secretary as early as Monday, The Cable reports, “as critics of the former Nebraska senator prepare to go to war to fight his expected nomination.”

Meanwhile, Hagel’s detractors “are moving forward with their campaign against the nomination.”

NBC News confirms Hagel is likely to be the pick though White House officials deny a final decision has been made.

A new petition on the White House website:

“Vice President Joe Biden has a demonstrated ability to bring people together, whether at the negotiating table or at the neighborhood diner. We, therefore, urge the Obama Administration to authorize the production of a recurring C-SPAN television program featuring the daily activities and interactions of the Vice President with elected officials, foreign dignitaries and everyday American families.”

The Week has a great compilation of Biden’s wackiest one-liners from yesterday’s swearing-in ceremony.

First Read: “Yes, he’s the butt of jokes and The Onion parodies. But the guy delivered in reaching across the aisle. The whole point in Obama hiring Biden was to have him as his congressional go-to guy; For some reason, many in the West Wing are hesitant to let Biden be Biden and play this role until the very last minute. While Biden allowed himself to be rolled by staffers every now and then in the West Wing, in a second term (with his own eye on the Oval), we’re guessing Biden’s going to less inclined to take a backseat come March.”

House Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) “is signaling that at least one thing will change about his leadership during the 113th Congress: he’s telling Republicans he is done with private, one-on-one negotiations with President Obama,” The Hill reports.

“During both 2011 and 2012, the Speaker spent weeks shuttling between the Capitol and the White House for meetings with the president in the hopes of striking a grand bargain on the deficit. Those efforts ended in failure, leaving Boehner feeling burned by Obama and, at times, isolated within his conference.”

Instead, he’ll try to “pass bills through the House that can then be adopted, amended or reconciled by the Senate.”

In an interview with President Obama and first lady Michelle Obama, Barbara Walters delved “right into what happens behind closed doors at the White House” and asked the Obamas how they “keep the fire going in their marriage,” making for a bit of an awkward exchange, according to the Hollywood Reporter.

Said the president, after a surprised chuckle: “We’ve been married now 20 years, and like every marriage, I think you have your ups and your downs. But if you work through the tough times, the respect and love that you feel deepens.”

President Obama will nominate Sen. John Kerry to be the next secretary of state at the White House later today, the Washington Post reports.

Kerry selection “all but guarantees a swift, smooth path to confirmation. The lawmaker has been a frequent foreign policy adviser and confidant to Obama, and his long experience means he has bipartisan advocates in the Senate.”

A new CNN/ORC poll finds that most Americans think Kerry’s appointment would be good for the nation, with 57% saying they hold that view and 32% saying it would be bad. But there is also a partisan gap, as 80% of Democrats and 54% of independents say the Kerry pick would be good but 56% of Republicans say it would be bad.

Meanwhile, the New York Times notes that if he is confirmed, Kerry will become the first losing general election candidate to ascend a major new political position since Richard Nixon in 1968.

A new Gallup poll shows President Obama’s approval rating at 56%, his highest mark on that question since October 2009, with just 37% disapproving of his job performance.

“The timing of the increase in Obama’s ratings could reflect a broad-based public reaction to the Newtown shootings, similar to the ‘rally around the flag’ effect often seen at the start of wars and other threats to national security, in which Americans rally behind their leader. It could also reflect the impact of the president’s specific actions after the tragedy, including his attendance and speech at a Newtown prayer service Sunday night, and his appointment on Wednesday of a national task force to recommend steps that can be taken to reduce gun violence in the future.”