white house press

In the latest shakeup at 1600 Pennsylvania Ave., Robert Gibbs has announced he will be leaving as White House Press Secretary next month:

Gibbs will depart in February, and he plans to become an outside political adviser to President Obama. He will also give private sector speeches, according to the Associated Press.

No replacement has been named.

"He's had a six-year stretch now where basically he's been going 24/7 with relatively modest pay. I think it's natural for someone like Robert to want to step back for a second to reflect, retool and that, as a consequence, brings about both challenges and opportunities for the White House," President Obama told the New York Times.

It will be interesting to see who replaces him. Maybe Obama should go all Bush and appoint someone like Keith Olbermann or Ed Schultz. Yeah that won’t happen.

In about 10 minutes the White House will hold a joint press briefing with Robert Gibbs and Thad Allen, in what is probably the start of a much more out front White House when it comes to the spill:

White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs's briefing, which normally comes in the afternoon, takes place at 10 a.m., and will be conducted by Adm. Thad Allen, the national incident commander in charge of the response to the Gulf of Mexico disaster.

Following that we have this:

The briefing is happening early to make way for a Facebook video chat with energy czar Carol Browner, who has become one of the go-to oil spill people at the White House in the past week.

President Obama also plans to hold a full meeting of his Cabinet -- not a common event during his first year and a half in office -- to discuss what the administration is doing to stop the leak and to clean up the coastlines of several states.

Are we finally getting the Obama response that so many have been demanding? We'll see today.

It sounds like Howard Dean really got under the skin of some people:

Liberal Sen. Jay Rockefeller denounced Howard Dean’s call for the Senate healthcare bill to be axed as “nonsense and irresponsible.”

Rockefeller (D-W.Va.) and the White House both fired back at Dean on Wednesday for saying that liberals should kill the Senate bill.

[SNIP]

“I don’t know what piece of legislation he’s reading,” White House press secretary Robert Gibbs told reporters Wednesday. “I don’t think any rational person would say killing a bill makes a whole lot of sense at this point.”

Rockefeller and the White House sure didn’t go after Lieberman this hard, and Lieberman is the one who has hurt healthcare the most. Now why is that?

The story of the White House party crashers is apparently the only thing that has happened over the extended weekend if you listen to MSNBC, so let me take a moment and bring up my thoughts.

There is a lot of finger pointing going on with this. Some are blaming the Secret Service, while others point the finger at the White House. The latter is completly obscene, but if the right wants to travel that path then let’s remind them of a man who posed as a reporter for a fake publication and sat in the White House press briefing room for a couple of years under Bush. Jeff Gannon not only sat in the briefing room, but also was in attendance when countless foreign leaders were visiting. Security at these events are much more relaxed than they are during a state dinner.

But I really want to focus on the Secret Service. Yes there was an apparent failure here, but what caused that failure? People seem to be ignoring the fact that President Obama has received more threats than any other president, so the Secret Service is stretched thin trying to keep the President safe as it is. The fact that Obama has been such a big target of threats has become a laughing issue for the right, which it is not. It’s a very serious issue, and one that the Secret Service takes very seriously. Perhaps it’s time to increase the size of the Secret Service.

Then there is the issue of what to do with the couple. Many are calling for criminal charges. I’m sure prosecutors can find something to charge the couple with, but will it stick? The most I can think of charging them with is trespassing and that is a rather minor crime. Instead of being out for blood we should be looking for solutions, like not allowing this to happen again.

Since the GOP doesn’t seem to be able to distance themselves from the disaster known as Bush, it looks like they will now embrace them:

Former White House press secretary Dana Perino, former Bush counselor Ed Gillespie and former White House deputy press secretary Tony Fratto are among those set to provide words of wisdom to House Republican press secretaries at their annual workshop this Friday.

Now there’s a lineup, but since when is a time of “worship” turned into business time? Or are they just going to worship the Bush years?

Or something the Republicans never do:

MSNBC's Joe Scarborough conducted a phone interview on Thursday morning with former white House press secretary Ari Fleischer, who heads a group that is running an ad campaign to convince Congress to continue funding President Bush's Iraq War.

"When we see all the missteps [in Iraq] ... it makes it harder, does it not, for the American people to trust this administration moving forward?" Scarborough asked Fleischer.

"Look at the other side," Fleischer answered. "I could blame Jimmy Carter for creating the mullahs and the ayatollahs in Iran."

"But Jimmy Carter's not president right now," said Scarborough. "Jimmy Carter's not saying 'Trust me.' George Bush is."

Get that? It's Carter's fault that we have problems with Iran. Nothing about Bush's "axis of evil" comment or anything. Just like the Republicans blaming Clinton for al Qaeda and 9/11, even though whenever he tried to take action against them the Republicans screamed "wagging the dog". Perhaps if the Republicans would have worried less about blow jobs in the 90's, September 11th would have never happened. Why don't people ever ask that?

Perhaps that should become a campaign slogan. When the Republicans try this change of blame game, come out and say "The Republicans infatuation with Bill Clinton's cock caused 9/11 and the loss of 3,000 lives". In this world of blame games, that holds more water than blaming Jimmy Carter for something 30 years ago. Hell if that is the case then why didn't Reagan do something? He was supposed to be this ultimate President. He had more time in office than Carter did.

Leading up to last week's Connecticut primary, we constantly heard of this "insurgency" in Connecticut. The right quickly labeled Lamont's campaign as that, because he dared to challenge an incumbent.

Here we are one week later and look how things have changed:

White House Press Secretary Tony Snow said this morning that President Bush will not endorse Connecticut U.S. Senate candidate Alan Schlesinger (R) over Sen. Joe Lieberman even though he's the Republican nominee.

If that isn't enough for you, then take a look at this:

Interesting item from The Plank: "On Hardball Chris Matthews just asked Republican National Chairman Ken Mehlman what he will tell GOP donors who ask his advice: donate to Lieberman, or to the Connecticut Republican nominee, Alan Schlesinger? Mehlman dodged the question, saying he would tell just people to give cash to the RNC to spend strategically. When Matthews pressed him, Mehlman again refused the chance to say that the GOP clearly supports Schlesinger over Lieberman. Fascinating."

So we got the country's top Republican and the head of the Republican National Committee both refusing to back their own candidate in the general elections this fall. If what happened in the primary was an insurgency, then this is a full blown Jihad.

The Sunday Morning Line-up is a little short today because ABC is carrying World Cup Soccer so This Week will not air. Here is the other programs:

• Late Edition With Wolf Blitzer

  • Tony Snow: White House press secretary
  • Sen. Pat Roberts: R-Kansas, Intelligence Committee chairman
  • Sen. Dianne Feinstein: D-California, Intelligence Committee member
  • Hoshyar Zebari: Iraqi foreign minister
  • Lawrence Eagleburger: Former secretary of state
  • Zbigniew Brzezinski: Former national security adviser
• Face The Nation
• Tony Snow, White House Press Secretary
• Sen. Lindsey Graham, Armed Services Committee, Republican - South Carolina
• Sen. Joseph Biden, Ranking Member, Foreign Relations Committee, Democrat - Delaware
• Meet The Press
• Rep. John Murtha, D-PA, on Iraq & politics.
• Shell Oil's President John Hofmeister; ConocoPhillips Chrmn. & CEO James Mulva; & Chevron's Chrmn. & CEO David O'Reilly.