Washington Extra – It’s genetic
Forget about the branch. President Barack Obama offered the whole olive tree to the business community today with the appointment of JP Morgan Chase executive William Daley as White House Chief of Staff.
Daley also knows something about politics. He comes from Chicago where politics has a history of being played bare-knuckled style. Oh, and his brother is the Daley who is stepping down as Chicago mayor, which opened the way for Rahm Emanuel, Obama’s former White House chief of staff (whom Daley is replacing), to run for that office.
Plenty more dots to connect — Daley was also former President Bill Clinton’s commerce secretary, and Clinton has come to Obama’s aid on more than one occasion (even before the press).
Obama said Daley “has a smidgen of awareness of how our system of government and politics works. You might say it is a genetic trait.”
The Chamber of Commerce did not even try to contain its glee. “This is a strong appointment,” said Thomas Donohue, president of the business group.
Looks like the scene is set for an administration-business rapprochement.
Washington Extra – Building a better Haiti
Returning home from a fascinating week in Haiti today, and meetings with the prime minister, UN mission chief, aid workers, business leaders and middle class and poor Haitians.
In a sense, Haiti is another test case for the international aid and development effort. A disaster on the scale of the January earthquake — striking a poor country with a weak government and private sector — has highlighted all the well-known pros and cons of the international aid effort, which now seems to run much of the country and economy.
Today, there is very little malnutrition, epidemics and major disturbances have been avoided and healthcare for most Haitians is better than before the quake struck, all major achievements.
But many Haitians have serious reservations about the “occupation” by thousands of foreign NGOs, only a few of which actually work with the government. Much of the aid money flows right back out of the country, and much of the energy and goodwill is dissipated in waste and overlap.
The massive influx of free foreign food, medicine and medical help has also undermined local Haitian agriculture and the private health sector.
There is a real fear that not enough of lasting benefit will be left behind when all these foreigners eventually pack up and leave. A further disaster avoided, yes. A firm foundation for the future, not much sign yet.
Here are our top stories…
Rahm’s White House going away present – dead fish wrapped in newspaper
What do you get a guy who’s leaving the White House to run for Mayor of Chicago?
White House colleagues presented Rahm Emanuel with a dead Asian carp wrapped in Chicago newspapers at the morning meeting on his last day.
It was a symbol of two of the many political battles fought by the man who became President Barack Obama’s chief of staff — he once sent a dead fish to a pollster as a message of displeasure, and the other was his fight against the Asian carp threatening to invade the Great Lakes.
Our White House correspondent Steve Holland tells us that Austan Goolsbee gave it to Rahm at a senior staff meeting, saying, “I talked to the policy team and we wanted to give you a going away present—something to show how we feel about you but also shows we understand your new possibilities. I was the natural go between—I voted for you all three times you ran for Congress and even in that first primary. So here is your present.”
Emanuel opened it and said, “this is a dead fish!” And Goolsbee said, “to most people, it looks like a dead fish. But to a future mayor of Chicago, it looks like a dead Asian Carp. And you’ll be happy to know that it wasn’t easy to find one of these.”
“ In Chicago, this is how friends say goodbye ,” said White House spokesman Robert Gibbs.
Rahm told senior staff in the Roosevelt Room: “I know that I pushed you all very hard. But I did it in service to the president and I believe that our whole country is better off for it.”
Washington Extra – Storm clouds over Haiti
There was a tremendous outpouring of goodwill and money for Haiti after the quake, which prevented a further humanitarian catastrophe. But so far, nine months after the capital was devastated, progress in “building back better” seems painfully slow. Rubble still chokes the narrow streets of Port-au-Prince, and 1.3 million people occupy every available scrap of land in tents awaiting resettlement, or even just a government plan on what to do with them.
Given the mind-boggling scale of the disaster, the weakness of the government and economy even before the earthquake, the lack of land as well as clearly defined land ownership records, it is unfair to expect too much.
But today everyone seems to be asking: What has all this goodwill achieved in terms of lasting benefits to Haiti? One thing that is clear from our interviews this week is the government, local elites and the international community seem to be playing something of a blame game.
Last week six people in the camps died when a freak storm struck Port-au-Prince, and today more bad weather could be on its way. There has been a spike in births in the camps as the first “earthquake babies” arrive, but the future they face looks as uncertain as ever.
Here are our top stories from today…
Gibbs skillfully dances around Rahm question
The performance was worthy of “Dancing with the Stars.”
Watching White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs waltz around the question of whether White House chief of staff Rahm Emanuel had decided to leave and run for mayor of Chicago was quite breathtaking.
Speculation was rife all week that President Barack Obama’s top enforcer would announce that he would leave by the weekend to run for Chicago Mayor, a job he’d always said he wanted.
All that remained was confirmation.
So when anonymous sources told reporters today that Rahm had made the decision and he was leaving, all anybody wanted was confirmation at the White House press briefing.
Well that was not to be. Gibbs stopped just shy of confirming it, doing the Texas two-step in dancing around confirmation, no matter how narrowly the question was asked.
Which led to some interesting verbal constructions, that were nonetheless helpful to reporters who are on Rahm-watch on Friday.
Classic Toby. Maybe Rahm’s departure is the cha-cha-cha change Obama needs.
from Summit Notebook:
How do White House staff know when it’s time to leave?
It's an age old question that even applies to senior staff working in the White House: At what point do you decide it's time to quit your job and move on?
White House spokesman Robert Gibbs predicted at the Reuters Washington Summit that some people working in the White House will soon decide they want to go back to a less hectic life. Especially those who worked on President Barack Obama's presidential campaign which lasted two grueling years.
"It's a tremendous privilege to come and work in that building each and every day," said Gibbs.
Gibbs said he told himself early on in the job, when he was driving to work on a dark and cold morning, that if he ever lost his awe of the White House it would be time to go.
"If you don't really think and stop when you're driving in and see that building and think 'wow, this is where I work' -- if you ever drive in and that doesn't happen that's when you should give somebody else a chance to do it," Gibbs said.
"My guess is that everybody that works in that building understands and believes that this is probably the most exciting job they'll have in their lifetime. So while I think most people will stay, certainly some people will leave."
One person is Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel, who is contemplating running for mayor of Chicago -- which wouldn't exactly be relaxing.
Is time off allowed during a mammoth oil spill crisis? Depends…
BP CEO Tony Hayward takes time off to watch his yacht race in British waters, President Barack Obama goes golfing over the Father’s Day weekend.
Is that acceptable when the BP oil spill, the worst in U.S. history and a huge environmental disaster, is entering a third month in the Gulf of Mexico?
Well, depends on who you talk to.
The White House on Monday made a cutting remark about Hayward’s yacht trip: “Look, if Tony Hayward wants to put a skimmer on that yacht and bring it down to the Gulf, we’d be happy to have his help,” White House spokesman Bill Burton said at the daily media briefing.
A BP spokeswoman had said Hayward was spending time with his son after being away from his family for much of the past two months.
Hayward made few friends on the Gulf coast after saying that he wanted his life back, and Burton couldn’t resist a small dig at that comment – ”It’s clear that he has. But what’s important to us is that the people in the Gulf get their lives back. It’s not so easy for them to just take a weekend away and forget about everything that’s happening down there.”
Some Republicans sought to equate the Hayward yachting outing with Obama’s day on the golf course. Republican National Committee Chairman Michael Steele called on Obama to give up golf and baseball games until the spill is fixed.
Obama ready to lend Rahm to Russia
President Barack Obama has a potent weapon in his arsenal if his Russian counterpart Dmitry Medvedev has any concerns about selling a new nuclear arms reduction treaty to the parliament in Moscow — his famously assertive White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel.
“Just as we have to go to our Congress, President Medvedev has to go to the Duma. And I think President Obama has said that he would send Rahm Emanuel to Moscow,” Secretary of State Hillary Clinton unexpectedly informed reporters during a White House briefing on the new treaty.
Emanuel’s muscular powers of persuasion are credited with holding U.S. lawmakers in line for the recent approval of the president’s historic healthcare reform, and he was also recently accused by a former colleague of picking an argument while stark-naked in a congressional shower.
“We all immediately endorsed that offer … if President Medvedev wants to take us up on it, we’re ready,” Clinton said, poking a little gentle fun at Obama’s enforcer-in-chief.
Photo credit: Reuters/Jim Young (Rahm Emanuel)
Would they be able to keep him? We could use a rake or a broom more than we could a Chicago thug?
Republican wants more Massa exposure but Democrat says it’s over
House Republican Eric Cantor thinks Congress should get to the bottom of Eric Massa’s bizarre tale of congressional nudity, satanic White House advisers, the groping of men (or not) and a congressional healthcare putsch by Democrats. But House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer says the case is over.
“I know that Steny joins me in hoping that the ethics committee in Congress looks into this adequately and can get to the bottom of all of this,” said Cantor, who appeared along with Hoyer on NBC’s Today show. ”The best place for this to be resolved is in the ethics committee and let’s get to the bottom of it.”
Otherwise, the whole thing seems to make Cantor want to hold his nose. And he is not alone. “I’m a little taken aback and stunned,” the Virginia lawmaker confided. “I don’t know the facts of this at all. I know that the American people are sickened.”
Massa’s descriptions of the events that led him to the exit door have become a spectator sport with more back-and-forth grunting than professional tennis. And with only one player.
He did, or didn’t, leave because of his health. Did or didn’t grope a male staffer. Did or didn’t jump ship to avoid an ethics probe into sexual harassment claims. Did have a close encounter with a naked Rahm Emanuel. Did decide that Emanuel’s a blood relative of Satan. Did get pushed from office by a White House infuriated over his refusal to back the Obama healthcare reform plan.
Or did he? Hoyer describes only one chain of events leading to Massa’s departure, and relatively speaking, his account sounds pretty realistic if only by virtue of its plainness.
Hoyer’s office learned of the harassment claims on Feb. 8 and strongly advised the young man in question to go to the ethics committee. In fact, Hoyer may have applied some pressure. But not the kind Massa likes to talk about.
Once again, TyC can’t get the message.
The media covers Democratic scandals and ignores Republican scandals, much the same way TyC ignores the facts and repeats his false assertions.
White House responds to naked House Democrat’s satanic tale
Eric Massa was a little-known freshmen House Democrat only a month ago. Now he’s a political media sensation and a darling of Talk Radio/TV commentators capable of provoking the White House on healthcare reform.
Why the metamorphosis? Massa abruptly resigned from Congress, revealed he had an angry run-in with White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel while the two were naked in a congressional gym shower, and now claims he was pushed out of office by the White House to keep him from voting against healthcare reform.
Oh, and he’s come to the conclusion that Emanuel is a “son of the devil’s spawn.”
The bit about healthcare reform has Republicans hopping with joy, because it coincides with President Barack Obama’s final push for Congress to enact his proposed overhaul of the $2.5 trillion U.S. healthcare system.
Massa has had a number of explanations about why he’s leaving Congress. He said last week that he would not seek re-election because of his health. Later, he said he would leave office this week to avoid an ethics probe into a sexual harassment allegation by a male staffer.
But it’s the allegation of naked White House bullying that has helped draw media attention. His tale has been picked up by conservative talk show host Rush Limbaugh, Fox News Channel personality Glenn Beck, RealClearPolitics, the online Drudge Report and a host of other media outlets including Reuters. Tonight, he’s due on CNN’s “Larry King Live.”
