Obama’s Search For New Chief Of Staff Narrows

Turns out it’s not so easy to replace Jack Lew:

President Obama on Thursday publicly acknowledged the big problem that he has created for himself by picking for the next Treasury secretary Jacob J. Lew, his trusted White House chief of staff. The shift left a vacancy in one of his administration’s, and Washington’s, most powerful if least understood jobs.

…

The fact that Mr. Obama has burned through four chiefs in four years — a contrast with Treasury, where Mr. Geithner stayed for the entire term and does not leave until Jan. 25, after the president’s second-term inaugural — is a testament to the unique difficulties and pressures of a job that really became institutionalized only with the Nixon administration. The chief of staff has cabinet status in this administration but ultimately is defined both by the times and the personalities involved.

By: dave-dr-gonzo

David Hirsch, a.k.a. Dave "Doctor" Gonzo*, is a renegade record producer, video producer, writer, reformed corporate shill, and still-registered lobbyist for non-one-percenter performing artists and musicians. He lives in a heavily fortified compound in one of Manhattan's less trendy neighborhoods.

* Hirsch is the third person to use the pseudonym, a not-so-veiled tribute to journalist and author Hunter S. Thompson, with the permission of his predecessors Gene Gaudette of American Politics Journal (currently webmaster and chief bottlewasher at Liberaland) and Stephen Meese at Smashmouth Politics.