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A few important posts were filled over the weekend, and I owe you some commentary. Why no contemporaneous punditry? You obviously haven't put Ikea furniture together lately.
- Senior Adviser: Pete Rouse. Rouse was, as you probably know, Tom Daschle's chief of staff in the Senate before becoming Obama's top Senate aide. He's a hill creature, savvy about legislation, and was one of Obama's earliest presidential advisers.
- Deputy Chief of Staff: Jim Messina. Interested in health care reform? Be interested in Messina, whose past work for Senate Finance Committee Chair Max Baucus makes him an ideal go-between for a future health care reform bill that will go through the Montana senator's committee.
- Deputy Chief of Staff: Mona Sutphen. A former Foreign Service Officer who served on the Clinton National Security Council, Sutphen's portfolio will presumably include a heavy dose of foreign affairs. Matt offers further background.
- Senior Advisor and Assistant to the President for Intergovernmental Relations and Public Liaison: Valerie Jarrett. The only question was where, not whether. Expect Jarrett to be a confidant-in-chief and advisor without portfolio.
- Assistant to the President for Legislative Affairs: Phil Schiliro: Also more or less a fait accompli since he began heading legislative affairs for the transition. Another congressional import, Schiliro was Congressman Henry Waxman's long-serving chief of staff.
- Chief of Staff to the Vice President: Ron Klain: We've already discussed this fellow.
- White House Counsel: Greg Craig. It hasn't been announced yet, but it's been reported out pretty extensively. Craig, who everyone was expecting for a national security job, finds himself once again the president's lawyer (he represented President Bill Clinton during the travails of impeachment). Craig's background in national security will serve him well as president-elect Obama negotiates the tricky legal issues surrounding the closing of the Guantanamo Bay prison facility.
As promised, we're seeing the White House staff develop much more quickly than the various executive agencies.
-- Tim Fernholz
