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| David Ignatius: Champ may be looking to shake-up his White House team |
| 2014-10-09 |
| Ignatius is perhaps the most reliable cheerleader Champ has at WaPo... [Wapo] Presidents often need new energy and talent to refurbish their second terms. George W. Bush opted for such a shake-up in 2006, and it arguably saved his presidency. Barack Obama is now facing a similar moment, and there are signs he’s looking to make some personnel changes after the November congressional elections. ValJar stays, everyone else goes ? Presidents value loyalty, to be sure, and Obama must be feeling especially grateful for team players after publication this week of Leon Panetta’s scorching memoir. It’s a bitter irony that after assembling his famous “team of rivals” — strong, independent personalities such as Panetta, Robert Gates and Hillary Clinton — Obama found himself second-guessed in memoirs by the former secretaries of defense and state. The next president may decide to include a nondisclosure form along with the oath of office for Cabinet hires. Here, sign this NDS and keep your mouth shut ! Champ’s current team can’t be faulted for disloyalty. And if they all stay on board for the last two years, that would at least delay publication of their autobiographies. But loyalty aside, Champ appears to be interested in a talent infusion that would add depth and expertise; a model was his recent appointment of retired Gen. John Allen as special envoy for Iraq and Syria. More such top-level hires may be coming in an effort to widen the administration’s bandwidth. I'm sick of these people, few of them golf and they continue to bring me the wrong answers. |
| Posted by:Besoeker |
| #18 Mr. Pruitt's in-lines are Post-it note yellow, a throwback to the days of his youth when the analysts passed reports around the group, each adding his comments on post-it notes to the thing. Highlighter yellow in-lines belong to the non-moderator who submitted the article. In this case, Besoeker. :-) |
| Posted by: trailing wife 2014-10-09 17:27 |
| #17 #7 The cleaning out has to stop at the very top. Is he going to resign? #7 The cleaning out has to start at the very top. Is he {Obumble] going to resign? The problem is that the cleaning out has stopped short of the top guy. FIFY |
| Posted by: JohnQC 2014-10-09 17:12 |
| #16 He doesn't listen to them anyway so this is an opportunity to move folks out who know where the bodies are buried while those folks are overly tainted. And a new batch of niave fools will come in and take the heat for all the failure. |
| Posted by: rjschwarz 2014-10-09 15:23 |
| #15 Retooling. The people he picks will tell you what he has up his sleeve for the "last two years" of his Regime. |
| Posted by: Ebbomosh Hupemp2664 2014-10-09 13:59 |
| #14 He will probably hire more stupid commies and staffers who don't know shit again. He is such a worthless piece of shit. Put that in an intel brief. |
| Posted by: newc 2014-10-09 13:21 |
| #13 It's not only the staff, the head of the snake is the problem. Resign obama, then things will get better for you and all of US. |
| Posted by: newc 2014-10-09 13:17 |
| #12 “I know more about policies on any particular issue than my policy directors. And I’ll tell you right now that I’m going to think I’m a better political director than my political director.” After the POTUS gig, I predict a long career as the poster boy for the Dunning-Kruger Foundation. |
| Posted by: SteveS 2014-10-09 12:12 |
| #11 This is just another manner in which Obama avoids taking responsibility for anything - 'My advisers suck!' |
| Posted by: Raj 2014-10-09 11:59 |
| #10 Funny, David wants intelligent, but loyal. Able, but subservient. Thing is, Mr. Obama has done nothing that inspires loyalty. He has set no definable objectives. He doesn't attend briefings or, based something like the ACA rollout, doesn't appear to follow up on the doings of his Cabinet, even through a staff member. Despite all the blather, his is not a strong personality. He clings to a small coterie whose primary focus is on a Domestic Long March. Allen may be a good choice. However, like Besoeker, I wonder if there's other reasons below the surface for the pick. |
| Posted by: Pappy 2014-10-09 11:14 |
| #9 Governor William J. Le Petomane: [pointing to a member of his cabinet] I didn't get a "harrumph" out of that guy! Hedley Lamarr: Give the Governor harrumph! Politician: Harrumph! Governor William J. Le Petomane: You watch your ass. |
| Posted by: Procopius2k 2014-10-09 11:13 |
| #8 talent infusion? “I think that I’m a better speechwriter than my speechwriters,” Mr. Obama told Patrick Gaspard, his political director, at the start of the 2008 campaign, according to The New Yorker. “I know more about policies on any particular issue than my policy directors. And I’ll tell you right now that I’m going to think I’m a better political director than my political director.” |
| Posted by: Frank G 2014-10-09 10:27 |
| #7 The cleaning out has to stop at the very top. Is he going to resign? |
| Posted by: JohnQC 2014-10-09 10:27 |
| #6 I don't think that's Fred's yellow, he has the good yellow. Not the lemon. |
| Posted by: Shipman 2014-10-09 09:51 |
| #5 |
| Posted by: Big Thromoth3646 2014-10-09 08:33 |
| #4 Talk about too little too late. This may have helped 3 years ago, now? Not so much. |
| Posted by: AlanC 2014-10-09 07:19 |
| #3 Shake up? Does that mean "wake up?" Since the entire lot of them have been asleep at the switch for anything except spinning poor decisions into nonsense, I thought for a moment he wanted to have some advisers who were not sleeping. |
| Posted by: Bill Clinton 2014-10-09 06:49 |
| #2 This might be good news for Chicago as a few more leave that mess to make a bigger mess in DC. |
| Posted by: Airandee 2014-10-09 06:35 |
| #1 What Fred said! Champ doesn't want expertise or added depth; just gold medal levels of boot licking and synchopanting..... Golf skills would be a plus. |
| Posted by: USN, Ret. 2014-10-09 00:20 |