Bill Daley is out as President Obama’s White House Chief of Staff. The amazing thing is, he lasted as long as he did — a few days shy of a one year. Just en months into his star-crossed office, the Wall Street Journal reported that
Mr. Daley’s core responsibilities are shifting, following White House missteps in the debt-ceiling fight and in its relations with Republicans and Democrats in Congress.
On Monday, Mr. Daley turned over day-to-day management of the West Wing to Pete Rouse, a veteran aide to President Obama, according to several people familiar with the matter. It is unusual for a White House chief of staff to relinquish part of the job.
And it might be no coincidence that Obama has performed better politically and in the polls since Daley’s demotion-in-everything-but-name. Really, all that was left to do was to allow a respectful length of time to pass before handing him his coat and hat and showing him the door.
There’s a good reason for that, too. This is a White House running on something like chaos theory, only without the underlying order. Jacob Lew comes in as Obama’s third CoC, a first-erm record only matched by George H W Bush’s disorderly White House.
And let’s think about Obama’s third choice: Jacob Lew? The budget director? The guy who took “tax and spend” and turned it into “spend and demonize the opposition?” This is the guy to bring order to the court?
No, it’s pure politics, and Chicago hardball at that. If you thought 2011 was ugly, with battles over taxes and debt ceilings, you ain’t seen nothing yet.
Daley had to go because he was a squish. Lew had to come in, because somebody has got to smack the Republicans around while the President tries to campaign towards the left-left-left, tacking rightward from the left-left-left-left-left.
But I wasn’t really expecting anything else. Were you?
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