“She is the single most influential person in the Obama White House,” said one former senior White House official, who like many would speak candidly only on condition of anonymity.Makes her sound like Karl Rove, right? But as the NYT puts it: "If Karl Rove was known as George W. Bush’s political brain, Ms. Jarrett is Mr. Obama’s spine."
“She’s there to try to promote what she understands to be what the president wants,” the former aide said. “Ultimately the president makes his own decisions. The question that is hard to get inside of, the black box, is whether she is really influencing him or merely executing decisions he’s made. That’s like asking, ‘Is the light on in the refrigerator when the door is closed?’ ”
“He’s got a real mess in the West Wing,” said one close presidential adviser. “Valerie is effectively the chief of staff, and he knows, but he doesn’t know. She’s almost like Nancy Reagan was with President Reagan, but more powerful.”...Specifics: 1. Jarrett was responsible for encouraging Kathleen Sebelius to go ahead with the contraception mandate in the health insurance regulations; 2. She once "order[ed] a drink from a four-star general she mistook for a waiter"; 3. She snubbed George Soros and may be be responsible for his "largely sitting on the sidelines this presidential election," 4. She insulted Cornel West (after he whined about not getting invited to the inauguration), letting people know, as he put it: "one, I was crazy, and two, I was un-American."
It is not so much that she is Mr. Obama’s liberal id. Rather, her voice is often the one at the table reminding everyone of the president’s aspirational “first principles,” that he “didn’t just come to the White House to hold the office, but to make change,” [according to Anita Dunn, who was the president’s communications director].
#1 is the most important revelation, and the NYT begins and ends the article with it:
Worried about the political and legal implications [of the requirement that employers provide health insurance that covers the cost of birth control], the chief of staff, William M. Daley, reached out to the proposal’s author, Kathleen Sebelius, the health and human services secretary. How, he wondered, had the White House been put in this situation with so little presidential input? “You are way out there on a limb on this,” he recalls telling her.He was told that Valerie Jarrett was involved, and it was her support that made Sebelius go ahead with something that got Obama in trouble with Catholics as he faced his reelection.
Catholics, a group Mr. Obama won in 2008, make up more than a quarter of the electorate. Though most personally support birth control, Mr. Daley and Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. worried about how forcing church-affiliated organizations to pay for it would play....And the "war on women" — which to me looks like nothing but rhetoric designed to paper over this policy screw-up — is that the voice of Valerie Jarrett? What is the President's voice? Whose "aspirational 'first principles'" are we talking about?
Mr. Biden arranged for Cardinal Timothy M. Dolan of New York to meet with the president and express the church’s view. With the support of some of the president’s political advisers, Ms. Jarrett pushed back in her own meeting with Mr. Obama, aides said. And she signaled Ms. Sebelius to “keep fighting — I’m with you on this,” said one former official with knowledge of the matter.
But by January, even friendly voices were accusing the president of throwing “his progressive Catholic allies under the bus.” Democratic members of Congress were fielding calls from constituents who felt, in the words of one, that this was a “big blunder.” In a senior advisers meeting, the president, exasperated, ordered his senior staff to “figure it out,” one participant said.
But if some expected significant backtracking, they were mistaken. In phone calls the next week, the president outlined his compromise: the burden for the coverage would shift from employers to insurers, but women who worked for religious organizations could still avail themselves of the benefit.
“When the president called me,” said Cecile Richards, the president of Planned Parenthood, “I could practically hear Valerie’s influence.”
Is the light on in the refrigerator when the door is closed?
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59 comments:
".....If Karl Rove was known as George W. Bush’s political brain, Ms. Jarrett is Mr. Obama’s spine...."
I guess without Jarrett he just another invertebrate.
Frickin' administration is ignorance squared.
It's interesting that President Obama seems to only have a coterie of women advising him on the most important matters. I could elaborate, name names, etc., but find this remarkable--as remarkable as a say, a woman who only takes advice from men.
Then we have the hypothetical man in charge only taking advice from men (the historical norm) and the never been tested woman in charge only taking advice from other women.
What is the President's voice?
Haven't you figured this out by now. Obama is an empty suit. He doesn't have a voice.
He is a puppet, a construct, a mythical person created by the progressive left. He mouths the words that are pre printed for him. Scrolling on the teleprompter. A good speaker using other people's thoughts and words.
They don't call his political advisors 'handlers' for no reason. Think puppets and puppeteers.
In a senior advisers meeting, the president, exasperated, ordered his senior staff to "figure it out".
It's bold leadership like this that will secure his reelection.
--“She’s there to try to promote what she understands to be what the president wants,” the former aide said. ---
What SHE UNDERSTANDS (not shouting) what HE wants.
Teh Won says if he wins a 2nd term, he will keep talking until we get it and agree with him.
Maybe he should have kept talking to Jarrett until SHE got what HE wanted.
Cos she's not understanding him.
And wait until that sterilization gem gets out.
Romney should play that one up.
Calling the admin "tone deaf" is being kind.
They are not smart, they are not wise. They most certainly aren't my betters. But they are credentialed. Ph.D. in Village Idiocy.
I'm still being kind.
There goes Val, under the bus. It's getting crowded there.
To me, the most interesting thing about Jarrett is that she has not seemed very bright in media interviews when I watched her. With Rowe, Emanuel and others who have been in influencial positions, when watching them do interviews, I never had any doubt that they were smart. Jarrett does not seem bright.
"There goes Val, under the bus."
Not possible.
She is the bus.
Funny, we saw this sort of thing for 8 years when Dubya was POTUS; only now does the Gray Lady get around to returning the favor for Zero.
The really interesting part is the she seems to be the only woman Zero respects.
PS They forgot how Ms Jarrett kept telling Zero not to hit bin Laden.
As I say, we'll find out one day Panetta did a complete end run around Commandante Zero and the puppet mistress.
Interesting that nobody--EVER-- points out the fact that the whole Blago scandal starting with Obama demanding that his Senate seat be filled by Valerie Jarret.
Mr. Biden arranged for Cardinal Timothy M. Dolan of New York to meet with the president and express the church’s view.
Biden sounds smarter than Ms. Jarrett. Maybe he really is the intellect of the Democratic Party.
Althouse: "There goes Val, under the bus."
Not possible.
She is the bus.
But why bring her up in such a detailed way now, other than to let her take the blame for unpopular policies?
If this works right, Val will be driving the bus Obama goes under.
Wouldn't THAT have been a riot if Clint had responded to the chair last night, Valerie let's you talk like that?
Biden sounds smarter than Ms. Jarrett. Maybe he really is the intellect of the Democratic Party.
Don't frighten us like that, Jason.
The President seems to want a new bus.
What we need is a new highway. One that does not lead to DC.
When I first met her at one of the WH events, I did not see her as a bright person. When she came to the Chicago HQ in 2008, she also was quite mediocre. What she has is this: She knows the POTUS secrets (wright, house-deal, etc.). Keep your friends closer, keep others even closer....
She is as bright as Gail Collins and Mo Do.
Let me see an appointee from the "squeaky clean" Illinois Democratic party can pull the levers behind the scenes, but Ryan, who has had his ideas discussed and voted on publicly in Congress for 12 years is lying and underhanded?
And a staff of 36? Great example of government efficiency.
This is emblematic of this administration.
The people who are supposed to be in charge are not the ones really in charge, and the troops have to guess as to what the policies really are from day to day.
And Senator Present gets exaspearted and tells the staff to "figure it out."
Seeing Red wins the thread!
Edutcher mentioned it....
Surprised the NY Times missed one the biggies...which would be Jarrett and Holder blocking the CIA and military from going to get bin Laden on two occasions (1st time he had some in the CIA and military agreeing with Holder, Jarrett and Obama that more info was needed).
The story was that Leon Panetta managed to get a meeting without Holder and his terrorist rights fixations, and Jarrett present and finally bulled Black Messiah into agreeing.
One obvious concern the leaks revealed was that the CIA knew bin Laden had moved from other locations and one leak from Pak ISI about a drone spotting over Abbottabad, a CIA person found there. Or a White House, Fed agency, or military leak to US media that they seemed to have bin Laden discovered...
And he could pack up and be gone in a day to a new safehouse.
And it would be a shame when the public somehow learned we found him and he escaped because WE dithered, Mr. President!
So is Jarrett leaking state secrets to get back at those in the military and CIA for doing an end run around her?
The whole article is scary. Doubly so from the NYT
Dreams from the woman my father should have married.....The Times description of Valerie as the "black box" is not only racist but sexist. We should move beyond such characterizations.
Obama is the Trojan horse.
He was the selected carrier - perfectly chosen and set up to be the face for the gang that no one would ever vote for knowingly.
And now they own him, because they can tell the story how how incompetent he really is, except as they have danced him as their puppet.
Obama needs a Yoko Ono to wake him up and convince him that he's being propped up and used by the gravy train riders.
His only hope is to use the office and pulpit of the presidency to kill off the blackmailers while he still has a chance.
"Surprised the NY Times missed one the biggies...which would be Jarrett and Holder blocking the CIA and military from going to get bin Laden on two occasions"
You would have favored them on that, right, Fudd? You're always sneering at "heroes" so you must really hate the guys who offed OBL (not BO himself who you love).
But Ms. Jarrett’s White House defenders say that the criticism is fundamentally misplaced and that she is merely an available target for the financial community’s anger over administration policies it dislikes.
This seems like a scary position to take, to me. It dislikes?
Somehow, if this were one of the social issues, like gay marriage, female contraception, borrowing more money, the NYT would be more forceful.
How about, the policies that are turning the US into Greece? Let's start there.
I don't like the constant couch-psycho-babble WRT to Presidents. Nancy Reagan, Karl Rove, Valerie Jarrett-- who will be the next Rasputin?
It's much easier to assume the obvious: Obama is the President. He's responsible for his own screw-ups, and for his successes...well, no, he didn't kill OBL, so maybe not...
Well, that explains a lot. It is one big mismanaged organization over there. Why even bother having a chief of staff if he isn't party to the decisions being made?
P.S. Can anyone name the current chief of staff without Googling it?
What is VJ and OB's philosophy of the down drodden?
Expect government to take care of you, or learn the skill set to make good personal choices and contribute to society?
'"There goes Val, under the bus."
Not possible.
She is the bus.'
Yup.
Say, wasn't she also a slumlord in Chicago.
Surely, the NYT didn't miss that in researching the article. LOL
Jason (the commenter) said...
But why bring her up in such a detailed way now, other than to let her take the blame for unpopular policies?
Perhaps to be a lightning rod for Republican racism and the War On Women all rolled into one?
Most amusing line of the article: Cornel West saying "I’m a Jesus-loving black man who tells the truth, in the White House, in the crack house or in any other house."
Yep, I bet he's had a lot of time in the crack house.
In a senior advisers meeting, the president, exasperated, ordered his senior staff to “figure it out,” one participant said.
Another stellar example of leading from behind.
Hey, he's just not a details guy. He's a Big Picture man, all the way.
And by Big Picture, I don't just mean "large," but a full-featured, 3D-capable 1080p LCD set that includes an edge LED backlight, 240Hz anti-blur technology, built-in Wi-Fi, and Sharp’s SmartCentral Internet platform with access to apps, YouTube videos, and CinemaNow, Netflix, Hulu Plus, and Vudu streaming movies and TV shows.
I agree with Joan (I find it easy to agree with a woman whose avatar wields a war hammer). We do not pay a President to sit with feuding senior advisers and just order them to “figure it out.” That's supposed to be part of his job description.
Clint Eastwood's empty chair imagery turns out to be all too real -- the chair in the cabinet meeting room is empty even when Obama is sitting in it.
When Jarrett is your spine and Biden your brain, your problem is beyond any possible cure. Cue in Robert Heinlein's quote on stupidity.
Big Mike is right. Worst still, the country would be better off if we literally had an empty chair as president.
Obama's statement that his plans for a second term are to campaign the whole time. He has figured out what he knows how to do. The rest of his staff can "figure out" the rest of the presidency.
But why bring her up in such a detailed way now, other than to let her take the blame for unpopular policies?
Like chickelit suggests, maybe they think this helps with the war on women/ you go girl (get free birth control) theme.
I don't see them distancing themselves from "unpopular policies" when Sandra Fluke is speaking at the convention.
Re: chickelit:
It's interesting that President Obama seems to only have a coterie of women advising him on the most important matters.
But the flip side is that his White House has been notoriously hostile to women. There's not necessarily a contradiction here (I've seen offices dominated by a woman or two where all the other women were basically forced out), but it's not like the President only works with women. The reverse is closer to the truth.
yashu said...
But why bring her up in such a detailed way now, other than to let her take the blame for unpopular policies?
Like chickelit suggests, maybe they think this helps with the war on women/ you go girl (get free birth control) theme.
I don't see them distancing themselves from "unpopular policies" when Sandra Fluke is speaking at the convention.
9/2/12 1:11 PM
The dems are going to put Fluke on? Yeah thats gonna get the working class woman vote. 30 year old woman who can afford to go to an expensive law school but can't afford birth control pills so the working class will have to pay more so they can subsidize her. The brilliance is overwhelming.
Valerie Jarret's mother was active in education reform at the University of Chicago, as was Bill Ayers's dad.
Obama served on an Educational Foundation board before going to Harvard, and Tom Maguire has done research showing it likely it was a board run by Ayers Sr.
When Obama came back from Harvard, Bill Ayers somehow knew him well enough to select him to chair the board of *his* education project, the Chicago Annenberg Challenge.
The official story is Obama met Jarrett when Michelle was interviewing for a job and she wanted to introduce her fiance to Jarrett. Within a short time, Obama was working at University of Chicago, given an office bin which he could write his book, and taking a leave for Bali at Valerie's recommendation (even though he was a newlywed).
I may sound crazy, but I suspect Jarrett met Obama before he went to Harvard, and the rest followed according to her plans, with an assist from the Ayers family.
Per Jo Beckett:
The week after the 2008 election, Mr. Obama implored Ms. Jarrett to join him at the White House. She was contemplating putting her name forward for the Senate seat he had just vacated, but she quickly put those aspirations aside.
Per the information Blago submitted to the judge:
The document also alleges that President Obama suggested Valerie Jarrett get his old seat, and that he contacted labor union officials about lobbying the Governor's office on her behalf
Only the judge saw this document with information about candidate "B" until HuffPo un-redacted the redactions. Also redacted was information that Rezko contributed to Obama's campaign.
Using unions to make your desires known to corrupt politicians sounds like the Chicago Way, so I will go with Blago on this.
You don't know the half of it.
Google "valerie jarrett frank marshall davis".
The Jarrett situation has always been a little weird, and it goes back even before Obama was inaugurated. When Blagoyevitch went down for trying to sell Obama's Senate seat, it looked for all the world like Jarrett was the person he was negotiating to sell it to. There was a lot of back and forth about price, then the anonymous buyer suddenly drops out, as though they had been tipped off that Blago was going down. Then you have the weird case of Obama jetting off to the Olympic committee but failing to push Chicago past the first round of voting.
On the one hand, lots of presidents bring in advisors from their home states whose main jobs are to look out for the president's interests. But usually, those advisors are long time assistants. For much of Jarrett's relations with the Obamas, she has been the patron. I can't think of another president who brought a former superior with them to the White House, and the dynamic seems really weird.
The other thing that seems really weird about the Obama-Jarrett relationship is that she often seems to be the source of problems that he has to take the bullet for. Usually in these situations, the low man shows his loyalty by taking a bullet meant for the high man. But Obama has stuck with Jarrett through the Blago thing, the Olympic thing, the contraceptive thing...
I feel like if I understood why Obama chooses to stick with Jarrett, I would have a much better understanding of how he sees the day-to-day mechanics of the presidency -- and specifically, why he's so much less effective than many hoped. If I were in that situation, Jarrett would have been offered an ambassadorship before sundown on Election Day. But for some reason, Obama prefers to keep her around.
The other thing that seems really weird about the Obama-Jarrett relationship is that she often seems to be the source of problems that he has to take the bullet for. Usually in these situations, the low man shows his loyalty by taking a bullet meant for the high man. But Obama has stuck with Jarrett through the Blago thing, the Olympic thing, the contraceptive thing...
I feel like if I understood why Obama chooses to stick with Jarrett, I would have a much better understanding of how he sees the day-to-day mechanics of the presidency
Yes!
And your point about Jarrett being a patron is excellent. She hired Michelle and later got her the job at the U of Chicago Hospital. Together they hired Axelrod to run the program running the poor people out of the emergency room.
It's so odd that didn't get more play, considering Obama's major initiative was health care reform.
The same woman who pushed for free birth control for wealthy women also pushed to get poor people out of her emergency room. So odd.
She is the bus.
Heh. So true!
The question that is hard to get inside of, the black box, is whether she is really influencing him or merely executing decisions he’s made. That’s like asking, ‘Is the light on in the refrigerator when the door is closed?’
It's plausible that a senior aide in this White House wouldn't know the answer to that last question, nor how to figure it out.
Soros funded Nuns on the Bus, which was anti-Catholic Church (the Vatican trying to rein in the crazy nuns that have grown beyond Jesus and the Church and worship Sophia or other strange god/desses)...but it also came across as pro-PPACA and pro-artificial contraception because of the nuns' dissent, and so therefore it helped Obama by attempting to neutralize Catholic opposition to PPACA. But we had our Fortnight of Freedom and St. Thomas More prayed for us and we're pissed off.
This, after Obama promised he'd respect us in the morning, when he speechified while receiving an honorary doctorate at Notre Dame.
Roberts and Bader-Ginsburg said in the SCOTUS decision that religious freedom cannot be violated in the working out of PPACA implementation, and the lawsuits based on religious freedom are still out there, so I guess those will percolate up for SCOTUS' next session.
Catholic organizations use self-insured groups--they ARE the insurance company. So his proposed rather Jesuitical solution isn't really a solution.
Yes: twelve-year-olds can opt for sterilization under PPACA.
I just hope the defense contractors undergoing sequestration on Jan. 2 send out the required notices 60 days ahead of time.
Another oh shit moment for Barry.
The biggest harm she does to our country is shield the president from people who might disabuse him of the notion that he really is the smartest man to ever seek the presidency, a lightworker, a messiah, the alpha and omega, all the things the media portrayed him as being in the last election. She is the protector of his ego, the enabler of his narcissism. For this alone we should run her out on a rail.
@CharlesVegas: Yes, that was the stand-out line in the report for me, too. I imagine Obama does a lot of ordering his senior staff to "figure it out." Then they send him his options in a memo and he checks a box.
Rather counterintuitively, she is Obama's balls.
Tempting as it is, we males all learn sooner or later not to think (exclusively) with them.
re: bgates:
It's plausible that a senior aide in this White House wouldn't know the answer to that last question, nor how to figure it out.
It wouldn't surprise me to learn the aide knew perfectly well what the answer is, and was making the point that the answer re: Jarrett is obvious too. And that the NYT reporter, Jo Becker, was just too dumb to pick up on it.
"Colonel House".
I've read that Jarrett almost talked Obama out of giving the go-ahead on bin Laden. It was touch-and-go there for a while with President Present wavering. When she found she couldn't stop the mission, she slowed it down by insisting on a ground mission rather than a bombing. Beast.
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