President elect Barack Obama is begining to make some high level appointments to his administration. From Chris Cilizza over at “The Fix” at the Washington Post:

The transition announced this morning that Pete Rouse, Obama’s Senate chief of staff, will become a senior adviser to the president. Rouse is a longtime senior to former Sen. Tom Daschle (D-S.D.) for whom he worked on Capitol Hill for nearly two decades.

• Jim Messina, another Hill veteran, will serve as a deputy chief of staff in the Obama Administration. Prior to joining the Obama campaign in mid-June, Messina served as chief of staff to Sen. Max Baucus (D-Mont.); Messina also has run a number of campaigns including Baucus reelection bids in 1996 and 2002. Messina is currently the director of personnel for the transition.

• Mona Sutphen was also named a deputy chief of staff this morning — bringing a long and deep foreign policy &eaccutte;sum&eaccutte; to the new administration. Sutphen was a foreign service officer during the 1990s and served on the White House Security Council from 1998 to 2000.

And Obama has apparently named the counsel to the President as well.

The Post’s Mike Shear and Anne Kornblut are reporting on 44 that Greg Craig will be Obama’s White House counsel, according to an individual involved with the transition.

The Obama team begins to take shape. When will we get that Secretary of State announcement?