President Barack Obama’s chief of staff has resigned from the White House after less than a year in charge.
Telegraph [UK]
09 Jan 2012
Bill Daley, a former Clinton administration official and a member of a Chicago political dynasty, stood down after a troubled 12 months as the White House’s top aide, which saw growing friction in the West Wing and a slump in the President’s poll numbers.
Mr Daley had pledged to serve until the general election in November and his early departure came as a surprise. He is the second chief of staff to step aside in President Obama’s three-year term, an unusually high rate of attrition.
George W Bush had only two chiefs of staff over his entire eight-year presidency.
Mr Daley will be replaced by Jacob Lew, the White House budget director.
Mr Obama will announce the staff shake-up, which comes at a difficult time for the president as he faces re-election, at the White House on Monday.
Mr Daley’s resignation follows frequent reports that he had failed to gel with the president’s inner circle since he was appointed a year ago…
The article continues at The Telegraph.
Related: Michelle Obama: “Distressed” about Daley, Madigan, Hynes clout
When Michelle Obama worked in Mayor Daley’s City Hall in the early 1990s, she was “distressed” by how a small group of “white Irish Catholic” families — the Daleys, the Hynes and the Madigans — “locked up” power in Illinois…
…Mrs. Obama worked in the Daley administration between Sept. 16, 1991, and April 30, 1993, according to City of Chicago personnel records. She was hired by Jarrett, then Daley’s deputy chief of staff.
Kantor writes Mrs. Obama “disapproved of how closely Daley held power, surrounding himself with three or four people who seemed to let few outsiders in — a concern she would echo years later with her own husband.
“…She particularly resented the way power in Illinois was locked up generation after generation by a small group of families, all white Irish Catholic — the Daleys in Chicago, the Hynes and Madigans statewide.”
When Jarrett was forced out of City Hall in 1995 — even though she was close to Daley — “the Obamas were horrified, their worst suspicions about the world confirmed.”…
Read the whole thing.
H/T Drudge Report
Update: …Meanwhile, Ace asks, “So… no adult in the room again, huh?”
FLASHBACK: Jim Geraghty tweets a link to this New York magazine profile of Obama after the midterms:
Emanuel’s ad-hocracy, meanwhile, didn’t faze Obama. The president’s friend and adviser Valerie Jarrett sometimes pointed out that not only had he never managed an operation, he’d never really had a nine-to-five job in his life. Obama didn’t know what he didn’t know, yet his self-confidence was so stratospheric that once, in the context of thinking about Emanuel’s replacement, he remarked in all seriousness, “You know, I’d make a good chief of staff.”
Those overhearing the comment somehow managed to suppress their laughter…
…UPDATE: Thanks to Daley’s resignation, Heather Higginbottom, “appointee blocked for 10 months by GOP for lack of qualifications” is now in charge of the Office of Management and Budget, Amanda Carpenter tweets.
Read the whole thing at Instapundit.
Update 2: New Obama Chief of Staff: Former Hedge Fund Exec. at Citigroup, Made Money Off Mortgage Defaults
H/T AnnBarnhardt on Twitter
