Obama staff shakeup immident, may come as early as Friday

Departure of Gibbs part of 'major retooling' at White House...
White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs on Wednesday called his departure part of a "major retooling" of President Obama's senior staff. In the coming days, Obama is set to announce a new Chief of Staff, and on Friday a new national economic adviser, among others economic aides. David Plouffe, Obama's Campaign Manager, is expected to begin work at the White House on Monday as the president's top adviser, as David Axelrod prepares to leave for Chicago to advise Obama's Reelection campaign. Gibb...

Shake It Up!
The obligatory post midterm White House staffing shakeup is underway, with official news as early as Friday as to who stays and who goes. Budget man David Axelrod long ago confirmed his departure, and he's just the first. There will be major holes to fill, including Axelrod's. Officials have known for months that he would leave for Chicago later this month, and that former Campaign Manager David Plouffe would come in to assume a similar senior adviser role. Officials have also been scrambling to...

White House Press Secretary Gibbs Announces His Departure
Some major changes are in store for the White House Briefing Room and President Obama’s innermost team. White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs announced his departure to Staffers on Wednesday morning.  The move comes on the president’s first full day in back in the office from his Hawaii holiday Vacation. Rumors brewed for months about an impending Gibbs departure from the White House.  Observers noted the sometimes testy relationship between the press secretary and the m...

Gibbs Leaving the White House
It’s official, though not a surprise: White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs is stepping down in early February. Gibbs will become a political adviser to the president and his re-election campaign. A successor has yet to be named, but names in the running include Deputy Press Secretary Bill Burton and Vice President Joseph Biden’s Communications Director, Jay Carney. Obama praised Gibbs’ work as his spokesman and close adviser over the past six years. “I think it’...

Gibbs Resigns as White House Press Secretary
BY Philip Caulfield DAILY NEWS STAFF WRITER Robert Gibbs, President Obama's Press Secretary, will be stepping down from his post after the State of the Union address to become an adviser to the President during his Reelection campaign. Gibbs began informing his White House colleagues today that he will be leaving in order to concentrate on the 2012 election, but has not released an official statement. [Read more about the 2012 Presidential Election.] "There are mixed emotions around here,...

Gibbss possible successors
Abby Phillip, Matt Negrin and MJ Lee look at the possible successors to Robert Gibbs behind the White House briefing podium, and manage to sneak in a fun long-shot in David Brooks. The top two contenders are Bill Burton, White House deputy Press Secretary, and Jay Carney, Vice President Joe Biden’s press secretary. Burton is the favorite, having been the president’s national press secretary during his campaign and an occasional fill-in for Gibbs, though he’s still relatively ...

White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs To Step Down
White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs has announced he is leaving his post to become an outside advisor to the president during his Reelection campaign. He is expected to end his reign in February. Top contenders to replace him are Deputy Press Secretaries Bill Burton and Josh Earnest, and Vice President Biden’s press secretary, Jay Carney....

Daley visits White House, renewing chief of staff speculation
William Daley visited the White House today and sat down with President Obama and interim Chief of Staff Pete Rouse multiple news outlets reported today. Daley, a executive for J.P. Morgan Chase, is said to be under consideration to replace Rouse as President Obama's chief of staff. Daley previously served as U.S. Commerce Secretary during the Clinton Administration and is the brother of Chicago Mayor Richard M. Daley. There was no word on whether President Obama offered the chief of staff p...

Meet the (Likely) Next White House Press Secretary: Bill Burton
With the announcement Wednesday morning that White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs will soon be moving on to a role outside the White House, the next big question is: Who will succeed him? There have been a few names kicked around, but the smart money is on Deputy Press Secretary Bill Burton , and with the announcement sure to come within days, this is a good time to get to know the man who is likely to take over Gibbs’ podium. To that end, we’ve got some background, plus my own o...

White House Press Secretary Gibbs steps down from his position
With all eyes on Congressman Eric Cantor from the Richmond, Virginia area as the new leader of the House, Robert Gibbs has the nation's attention for a different reason. Gibbs, White House Press Secretary, announced that he is leaving his position as President Obama's top confidant and press secretary to the President. He will leave his post in early February, 2011. It's not clear at this time why Gibbs is stepping down early, but Obama did make a statement that Mr. Gibbs will "continue to shape...

Obama White House sheds some of its hard men and Nancy Pelosi makes an ungracious exit
Watching Nancy Pelosi’s startlingly inappropriate farewell as House Speaker, in which she turned what should have been a gracious constitutional ceremony into a blatantly partisan defiance of the electorate’s judgement, I wondered whether her fingers were actually going to have to be peeled off the Speaker’s gavel. She really is a piece of work: unrepentant and self-congatulatory to the end, even in the face of overwhelming repudiation by the voters. It was left to John Boehn...

Podesta's State visit
Spotted at the State Department this morning: John Podesta, the former Clinton White House Chief of Staff, co-chief of the Obama-Biden transition, and current president and CEO of the Center for American Progress. Podesta, contacted by Politico about his State visit, said he had been there to give new year's greetings to his friend and former colleague Cheryl Mills, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s chief of staff. “What were the folks who saw me doing?” he joked. (Just ...

Gibbs to leave WH press secretary gig
…in order to pursue an exciting career as left center on Hollywood Squares - actually, is that program even still on?  No, just kidding: outgoing White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs is going to have some nebulous job defending whatever dumb idea the President comes up with that day, just like before - only now Gibbs will be doing it in places where people can actually interrupt him when he says something particularly egregious.  In other words, he’s still going to be a dolt,...

Robert Gibbs Stepping Down as WH Press Sec.
WASHINGTON - White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs says he is resigning his job as the president's chief spokesman. Gibbs is leaving to become an outside political adviser to Obama and to give speeches in the Private Sector. The change is to take effect in early February. No replacement has been immediately named. The move comes as Obama ushers in a broad shake up of his senior leadership, heading toward his own likely re-election bid in 2012. Copyright 2011 by The Associated Press. All Rig...

Gibbs says he's leaving White House
WASHINGTON—White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs says he is resigning his job as the president's chief spokesman. Gibbs is leaving to become an outside political adviser to Obama and to give speeches in the Private Sector. The change is to take effect in early February. No replacement has been immediately named. The move comes as Obama ushers in a broad shake up of his senior leadership, heading toward his own likely re-election bid in 2012....

Gibbs talks about leaving the White House
Calling his nearly two years as the president's chief spokesman -- as well as his nearly seven years as a close adviser -- an "opportunity of a lifetime," White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs said he would soon be leaving to take on a new role as an outside adviser to the White House. Gibbs said he expects to depart his position at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue in early February to become a paid consultant working outside the White House to re-elect President Obama in 2012. "What I'm gonna do nex...

Robert Gibbs joins exodus from White House Titanic: Obama's press secretary won't be missed in Britain
Fox News and the BBC are reporting that Robert Gibbs is about to step down as White House Press Secretary, and become “an outside presidential adviser”. His departure comes just two months after the Obama presidency’s “shellacking” in the Midterm Elections, when the Democrats suffered an historic defeat at the hands of US voters. He follows in the footsteps of former White House Chief of Staff, Rahm Emanuel and former National Security Adviser Jim Jones who left in October, a

White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs to Resign
What a great day this is... Reuters White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs is leaving his position to work as an outside adviser for President Barack Obama's re-election campaign, an administration official said on Wednesday . Gibbs is to depart in early February. A successor is to be announced within the next two weeks, the official said. Gibbs, a close confidant of Obama's going back to his time as a U.S. senator from Illinois, has for many Americans been one of the most public faces of t...

Gibbs To Sign Off as Press Secretary
Wednesday was a big day on Capitol Hill, what with the 112th Congress convening with a Republican at the helm of the House and with the announcement of a significant change in the Obama Administration: Press Secretary Robert Gibbs will leave his post in February. So, what’s next for Obama’s soon-to-be-former talker? It’s a little bit unclear at this point, but in Gibbs’ own carefully chosen words: “What I’m gonna do next is step back a little bit and recharge ...

Robert Gibbs Resigning, Becoming Part of Professional Left
We did it, you guys! We defeated Robert Gibbs with our restless coverage of his Lego-based Terrorism when there was nothing else to write about last week! Yes, Mr. Robert Lane Gibbs, famed White House Press Secretary, is leaving the White House forever, to go work in an actual building like an actual professional member of the left, instead of working in the back of some guy’s house as a favor, which is what he has been doing for the past couple years. But don’t worry! He will “...

Obama spokesman Gibbs to leave White House
President Barack Obama's Press Secretary, Robert Gibbs, will leave the White House after the State of the Union address later this month, he told CNN on Wednesday. Gibbs will become a pundit, supporting White House positions on Cable Television and in speeches, White House staff said. He had an easy, joking relationship with the press, and brought the briefing room down in laughter when he mocked Sarah Palin by writing notes on his hand, shortly after the former Alaska Governor was revealed...

Obama Likely to Announce New Chief Economic Advisor Friday
President Barack Obama will likely name a new chief economic advisor to replace Lawrence Summers (pictured) later this week as his administration looks for more effective ways to reduce an Unemployment Rate that remains near 10%, the Associated Press reported Wednesday. Additionally, Robert Gibbs has announced that he is stepping down as Obama's Press Secretary. One name high on Washington-watchers' short list of Candidates to take over from Summers as director of the National Economic Council...

White House Seen Soon Filling Treasury Public Affairs Post
Yahoo! Buzz The White House as early as Wednesday could move to fill a key public affairs position at the Treasury Department that has stood empty since the Obama Administration took office, a person familiar with the matter said. The White House is expected to nominate Jenni LeCompte to be the next Assistant Secretary for public affairs within the next few days. LeCompte currently serves as a deputy Assistant Secretary of the Treasury, in charge of public affairs operations. The assistant secre...

Howard Dean: Tea party the last gasp of the 55-year-old generation
Stumble This! The Tea Party movement represents "the last gasp of a generation that has trouble with diversity," Howard Dean told an audience Wednesday. The former Governor of Vermont and head of the Democratic National Committee told a breakfast hosted by the Christian Science Monitor that he expects the Tea Party to be a powerful influence in the 2012 election as it was in the 2010 election, but he doesn't see it as the future of American politics. "I think it's the last gasp of the 55-year-o...

What makes a great press secretary
Robert Gibbs is both Press Secretary and key member of President Obama’s inner circle. Does his successor, to be successful, have to be too? Not necessarily, says Martha Kumar, Professor of political science at Towson University, and author, most recently, of “Managing the President’s Message: The White House Communication Operation.” “It’s not essential that he or she have a long history with the president,” she said. “What they have to have is ...