Enjoying the Continuing Staff Story

I know it'd be easy to blog about what the new president is up to.  If you Google "Barack Obama" and then click the "news" link, you get something around 700,000 hits.

Hey, I'm as interested in his economic stimulus package as the next political junkie, but as an out-dated staff hack, I can't help but dig out the stories about what is happening at the staff level in the Obama Administration.

First of all, I saw Robert Gibbs' first press briefing, and I thought he did great.  [ASIDE TO THE OBAMA ADMINISTRATION:  Hey, why don't you have biographies for everyone on whitehouse.gov?  You should.  I mean everyone.  Sure, yes, people go there to read about President Obama and Mrs. Obama and Vice President and Dr. Biden.  But wouldn't it be fun to have something up about everyone?  From Gibbs to Rahm to the top tier, to the middle tier -- even to the lower levels.  Tell us who our government is.  Who is the staff assistant in the Personnel office?  Who are the guys who do the flowers in the North Lawn?  Who makes your lunch (hint -- it's Navy cooks!)?  Yours is an exciting story, Mr. President -- as you say, an American story.  But there are also exciting stories throughout the White House.  America needs to have its government humanized again.  What a neat way to do that.]

Back to the Gibbs briefing.  Again: thought he did great.  It was refreshing to finally see one of those things without that smug Dana Perino.  Indeed, it was refreshing to look up at a TV screen and see the words "Obama Administration."  It's like a relief, isn't it?  It was refreshing, indeed, to listen to a press secretary talk and agree with most everything he said. 

So good work, Robert.  Keep it up.

Not to kick the boss to the end of the piece, but I greatly enjoyed this New York Times story on Rahm Emanuel.  When he was named chief of staff, a lot of people worried (mostly those people were Howard Dean supporters and knew that Rahm was no fan of the Fifty-State Strategy or of Dean himself).  Not me (and no, I was not a Dean guy.  The Fifty-State Strategy was, however, awesome).  Anyway, I believed Mr. Emanuel to be an inspired choice, for many of the reasons this article lays before us. 

I hope to read more about Team Obama in the future.