Thursday, October 28, 2010

Why Hasn't Anyone Read Robert Draper's GQ profile Of Robert Gibbs?

Almost no one seems to have read beyond the first paragraph of Robert Draper's GQ profile of Robert Gibbs

Gibbs is clearly angling for a senior adviser post post-midterms.  The dull ineffectual Gibbs might seem like an unlikely choice to replace David Axelrod when he moves to Chicago and the re-elect campaign, but apparently Gibbs' role has been far more expansive than was previously understood.  Last April, in a Washington Post profile that Gibbs might as well have written himself and titled "Gibbs Needs To Be Taken Seriously," we were led to believe that Gibbs, though the "consummate presidential confidant" who attended "all 33 hours of the Afghanistan briefings," limited himself to advising the President on his tone and "'conventional wisdom' promoted in the media."  Draper tells a far different story.

Apparently Gibbs has a "faction" -- a faction so powerful that its advice outweighed Secretary Gates'  after Rolling Stone published its infamous McChrystal profile.  Gates wanted just a "reprimand,"
but "Gibbs and others argued that McChrystal had undermined the commander in chief and therefore must go. Obama sided with Gibbs's faction."  Wow. 
There's more!  Gibbs also helped to get Obama's approval for the Chrysler bailout:
 
"I was in the Roosevelt Room when the final decisions were made on the two auto companies," Gibbs recalls. "And I remember Chrysler was the one we discussed last. I'd asked someone before the meeting to pull together stuff on where the Chrysler plants were. And I spoke up at the meeting toward the end and said, 'These communities where the plants are, they're already at 17 to 19 percent unemployment.'
Where are those plants?  Swing states?  Has anyone actually read Rattner's book?  

And finally we have, in his own words, Gibbs describing how President Obama put him in charge of the Gulf spill containment effort.  Not just the mid-crisis PR campaign either:


An undersea robotic vehicle in the Gulf had dislodged the containment cap on the BP well. Until the lid was reattached eleven hours later, a new torrent of oil spilled into the sea. Gibbs went back into the Oval to give Obama the news.
The president stared at Gibbs, stunned. "Well, why did it do that?" he demanded.
"Sir, we're trying to find that out."
"Gibbs," Obama said, "your job the rest of the day is to make sure that one of those vehicles doesn't do that again."

Hey Mickey! What's going on here?






 



Hey Mickey!

Helping Mickey Kaus identify Undernews since October 2010.