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New chief of staff says he did not push Robert Gibbs out of White House...
Bill Daley, President Obama's new Chief of Staff, said Friday that reports he pushed Press Secretary Robert Gibbs out of the White House are untrue. A story in the London Telegraph, which was also linked on the Drudge Report, said Daley would not come to work if Gibbs was allowed to stay in the White House as a chief adviser. But Daley said in a statement that Gibbs's name "never, ever came up once in any discussion I had with the president or staff about me coming to the White House." "In my v...

The Top 12 Potential White House Press Secretaries
The Resignation and departure next month of White House Spokesman Robert Gibbs means that administration will soon have a much different face making its case in the lead up to the 2012 Presidential Election. But it's unclear who that face will be. Many insiders expect that deputy Bill Burton will get the job, but other names have started to emerge, such as former Clinton and Democratic Party spokeswoman Karen Finney, that would substantially change the look and tone from the press podium. We'v...

New Pecking Order in the White House
First Read: "Bottom line on the new White House staff shuffle: It's Daley and David Plouffe -- and then everyone else. Indeed, it will be much more top-down than the previous regime. By the way, it's Plouffe -- and not Daley -- who will lead the search for a new White House Press Secretary; Daley will have input, but the communications aspect of the White House falls under Plouffe and he'll have the biggest say." Meanwhile, Toby Harnden reports press secretary Robert Gibbs "wanted to be a presi...

White House Hits Back At Liberal Critics of Bill Daley
Source: CBS News It's not hard to understand why liberals are confused and angry over the choice of Bill Daley to be White House Chief of Staff. The President Obama they know and love spent the last two years bashing Wall Street executives, calling them "fat cats" and lecturing them for their "greedy" ways. Now, in a turn of events that has the Left Wing aghast, one of those fat cats will soon be setting policy at the White House. Daley, after all, spent 7 years at JP Morgan where he's believed ...

Obama: Gibbs $172,200 Salary Is Relatively Modest Pay
Obama: Gibbs’ $172,200 Salary Is “Relatively Modest Pay” Barack Obama told reporters yesterday that Press Secretary Robert Gibbs’ $172,200 salary was “relatively modest pay.” FOX Nation Perhaps it was the long flight back from Hawaii. But President Obama’s first full day back on the job suggested a slight case of tone deafness. In bidding a sort-of farewell to White House spokesman Robert Gibbs, he noted the “relatively modest pay” for which Gibbs has

Gibbs Calls Reports That Daley Forced Him Out 'Crazy'
Miami -- The timing of President Barack Obama's appointment of Bill Daley as his new Chief of Staff, coming less than a day after Robert Gibbs announced his departure from his role as Press Secretary, has prompted reports that Daley forced Gibbs out -- an allegation the outgoing White House spokesman called "crazy" Friday. "I made my decision and told the President before he left for Hawaii," Gibbs told The Huffington Post in an email. "He picked Bill Daley yesterday. It [the story] is crazy."...

Was Gibbs pushed?
Robert Gibbs will leave the Obama Administration after two years, which for press secretaries is not a particularly short period of time.  As he exits, William Daley will take over the management of the White House staff.  Are these two events related?  Toby Harnden, the Washington correspondent of the British newspaper Telegraph, thinks they are, and that Gibbs may not be the last person who gets pushed out of the inner circle: I wondered yesterday whether Robert Gibbs jumped or was p

Robert Gibbs' Successor: How About a Woman as White House Press Secretary?
The White House is looking for a successor to departing Press Secretary Robert Gibbs, and the top prospects -- as usual -- are men. But Politico's Mike Allen says new Chief of Staff Bill Daley would like a woman in the job. A woman as the face of this administration -- why, that would be something new and different. The most important qualities in a Press Secretary include access to the president, clarity of expression, ease on camera, and good relations with reporters. The names in the mix so f...

Did Daley Force Gibbs Out?
Toby Harnden at the Telegraph says John King says that Gibbs got the boot because Daley didn’t want him around: It’s being reported by John King on CNN right now that Gibbs wanted to be a presidential counsellor - something he’s been putting about for quite a while - but William Daley, the new Chief of Staff, nixed this because he believed that too many cooks would spoil the presidential broth. So that’s why Gibbs is out. I think I was one of the first to report on the

Obama Could Benefit from a Fresh Face to Replace Robert Gibbs
With the announcement that White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs will soon step down from his post, the big question in Washington is who will take his place? President Obama's choice could potentially send a potent message about the direction he plans to take over the next two years. And recent White House history may offer the president some guidance on what kind of replacement he should be seeking for Gibbs. When President Bill Clinton's first press secretary, Dee Dee Myers, left the post ...

Barack Obama's Clinton makeover cannot hide fatal flaw
The convening of a new Congress is traditionally an occasion when the White House allows the denizens of Capitol Hill their day if not in the sun, then at least on the Cable News channels. That was not the case on Wednesday when John Boehner, the new Speaker of the House, accepted an outsize gavel from Nancy Pelosi, the San Francisco liberal who became the first woman to occupy the post four years ago. Just over a mile away, at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, President Barack Obama was intent on mak...

Friday Hitzenmisses
It’s another one of those sloooow news days with no big stories but a few little ones. Here we go: He’s baa-ack! Rudy gearing up for DC run Confident that he’d have a chance to win, Rudy Giuliani is rounding up his top political advisers for a possible 2012 presidential run, sources tell Page Six. Sources say the tough-talking former mayor “thinks the Republican race will be populated with far-right Candidates like Mitt Romney, Sarah Palin and Mike Huckabee, and there&#...

Um, Ms. Nancy, the Market Meltdown Happened on your Watch
Seems we’re going to have to keep that Pelosi Watch category up.  She’s like the guest who won’t leave.  And our Mainstream Media seem fascinated the Minority Leader, doing their utmost to keep the big-spending Democrat center stage. Now, blogging on Michelle Malkin’s page, Doug Powers informs us the Ms. Nancy has pulled out the standard excuse of her party in the Obama era: it’s W’s fault: “We still would have lost the election because we had 9.5% u...

Megyn Kelly Officiates Debate Over Robert Gibbs Relatively Modest Salary
Fox News’ Megyn Kelly moderated a debate today, with radio host Jason Lewis and Democratic Strategist Bernard Whitman , over President Obama’s innocuous remark about Robert Gibbs’ “relatively modest pay,” and the “outrage” it has spawned. Kelly does a halfway decent job of calling “bullshit” on attempts to interpret Obama’s remark as a comparison to Average Americans, but she lets slide, and even repeats, the lie that the Obama administ...

Leftovers - January 7, 2011
House Republicans had a rough first week in the majority. The Economy added more jobs in 2010 than it did during the entire Bush Administration. After his 2008 debacle, Rudy Giuliani is reportedly considering a run for the White House. Rep. Steve King loses out on the chairmanship of the Immigration subcommittee. In related news, King appears not to know what "mendacity" means. GOP Budget Chairman Paul Ryan knows that Congress has to raise the Debt ceiling. Reps. Pete Sessions and Mike Fit...

The Right Word: Republicans get House trained | Sadhbh Walshe
The changing of the guard ceremony in Congress was met with an odd mixture of enthusiasm, fear and indifference on the far right radio dials. "They're gonna do it. They're really gonna do it, and I like it. I love, ladies and gentlemen, love the idea of reading the constitution on the floor of the House of Representatives today. It's an exorcism. Look at it that way. The House Republicans are performing an exorcism today. The Democrat-controlled 111th Congress is being exorcised; evil, if you wi...

Meet the new boss, not the same as the old boss
Overhauling his team at the top, President Barack Obama on Thursday named Banker and seasoned political fighter William Daley as his new Chief of Staff, hoping to rejuvenate both a White House storming into re-election mode and an economy still gasping for help. The choice of Daley immediately brought howls of Protest from the left flank of the Democratic Party, where advocates questioned his insider ties to Wall Street. Centrists, business leaders and Republican lawmakers rallied around the mov...

Obama to name Sperling as economic adviser: report
Sperling, a counselor to Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner, replaces Larry Summers at the economic council and returns to the job he held during the second half of Bill Clinton's 1993-2001 presidency. The council coordinates Economic Policy across the administration, and its head wields great influence within the White House. Obama will make the announcement at a window factory in Landover, Maryland, the Detroit News said on its website www.detnews.com. Under Clinton, Sperling navigated battl...

More Staffing News at the White House
The president's new staff is falling into place, though White House officials say the search for the replacement for departing Press Secretary Robert Gibbs is just beginning. At a Manufacturing plant in Maryland today, the president will announce the appointment of Gene Sperling to head the National Economic Council, a job Sperling also held during the Clinton Administration. That post is being vacated by Larry Summers. The president will also name Jason Furman as assistant to the president ...

Obama's New Press Secretary - David Brooks? It's Not That Far-Fetched
Who will replace Obama Press Secretary Robert Gibbs? The Wall Street Journal’s James Taranto caught an intriguing bit of speculation in Politico. One long-shot: David Brooks, the Times’ idea of a conservative columnist. Unlikely, but not implausible -- David Brooks is one of the few columnists Obama is known to read with respect, making him a rare media figure the White House likes. Before he was president, Obama called the New York Times writer "one of my favorite Conservatives." ...

Obama's New Chief of Staff is 'The Wolf' of Pulp Fiction
In Quentin Tarantino's 1994 opus Pulp Fiction, two hitmen—portrayed by John Travolta and Samuel L. Jackson—find themselves in a pickle after accidentally shooting of a colleague on a California freeway. Frantic, Jackson's character phones his gangster boss, pleading for help. Not to worry, says the boss, “Wait for The Wolf—who should be coming directly.” The Wolf—played brilliantly by Harvey Keitel—arrives on the scene, briskly barks directions and coo...

Barack Obama says that Press Secretary Robert Gibbs $172,200 Salary Is Relatively Modest Pay
More “Hope & Change”, Obama Modest edition: Isn’t this interesting and speak volumes of the mind set and hypocrisy of President Barack Obama … MODEST? Biden to Obama: Excuse me Barack, but isn’t it my job to say misinformed things and do verbal gaffes? Barack Obama told reporters  that out going Press Secretary Robert Gibbs’ $172,200 Salary was “relatively modest pay.” MODEST PAY? How out of touch with reality is this President and could Obama

Perino: Don't Focus on Gender in Press Secretary Search
Former White House Press Secretary Dana Perino says the Obama administration should quash any reports that the president's new Chief of Staff is looking specifically for a woman to replace departing Press Secretary Robert Gibbs, or else it could risk hurting the next spokesperson's credibility before he or she even walks into the West Wing. Reports Friday said William Daley, Obama's incoming chief of staff, allegedly wants the next person behind the briefing room podium to be a woman. Former Dem...

Obama names new chief of staff, drawing outcries from the left
WASHINGTON — Overhauling his team at the top, President Obama named Banker and seasoned political fighter William Daley as his new Chief of Staff yesterday, hoping to rejuvenate both a White House storming into Reelection mode and an economy trying to maintain growth. The choice of Daley immediately brought Protest from the left flank of the Democratic Party, where advocates questioned his insider ties to Wall Street. Centrists and business leaders rallied around the move, one that unders...

Meet the New Boss: William Daley is Obama Chief of Staff
WASHINGTON — Overhauling his team at the top, President Barack Obama on Thursday named Banker and seasoned political fighter William Daley as his new Chief of Staff, hoping to rejuvenate both a White House storming into re-election mode and an economy still gasping for help. The choice of Daley immediately brought howls of Protest from the left flank of the Democratic Party, where advocates questioned his insider ties to Wall Street. Centrists, business leaders and Republican lawmakers r...