What Will Takai Do?

President Obama withdrew on Wednesday the nomination of California Chief Information Officer Teresa "Teri" Takai for the Defense assistant secretary for networks and information integration, a job that currently includes the Defense CIO title.

ASD/NII will go bye-bye under the massive restructuring of the Defense Department Secretary Robert Gates announced in August, but the CIO title is mandated by the 1996 Clinger-Cohen Act.

This means that sooner or later the Pentagon will need to nominate someone for the job, which Marine Gen. James Cartwright, vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said will be even stronger than the current CIO role.

Will the new CIO nominee be Takai -- who has been waiting for this new job since March -- or has she tired of the process? And, what priority does that job have in the massive reorganization plan?

I predict the answers to these questions will not become apparent until next year due to the upcoming elections, the need to pass delayed budgets, and Christmas and New Year's.

I am picking up low-level signals that the administration may offer Takai a comparable job elsewhere, and I also have heard she still wants out of California before Republican Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger leaves office at the end of the year.