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Washington Prowler
A Slap at Valerie
The loser in William Daley’s elevation. Also: Sperling’s Goldman parachute.
DALEY BREAD
President
Barack Obama’s realignment of his senior staff in
the White House was already having a ripple effect, but perhaps not
in the way he intended.
According to White House sources, the loser in last week’s announcements that Chicago machinist, William Daley would return to Washington as Obama’s chief of staff was senior adviser Valerie Jarrett.
“She didn’t want that job, but she wanted more responsibilities shifted into her office,” says a White House source. “She wanted to remain the key point person for the White House’s interaction with the business community, and now that has been taken away from her.”
According to another White House source, Jarrett was advocating for more economic policy influence to be shifted to a White House council she would have essentially managed with new Council of Economic Advisers chair Gene Sperling.
“She insisted that Sperling needed to be managed, that he wasn’t ‘all in’ on our economic plans,” says one of the White House sources. She knows Daley and can work with him, but the realignment was a huge slap in the face to her.
In fact, Jarrett became an exceedingly wealthy and influential player in Chicago politics thanks to the Daley family’s good graces. But in the two years that Jarrett has served as the point person for business, the Obama administration has taken a black eye over a black eye seemingly every week.
CEOs grew tired of being told to wait in the lobby of the West Wing for as long as a half an hour for meetings that lasted sometimes less than that. There are numerous stories of Jarrett personally calling CEOs and dressing them down with verbal assaults for perceived slights in comments about the U.S. economy or the President’s handling of the economy.
More than six months ago, senior economic adviser Larry Summers threw up his hands in frustration over the Obama Administration’s handling of the business community and the economy. “He just apologized to me and said that there was nothing more he could do help us get our message to the President, that it was just a waste of time,” says a Washington-based senior executive with ties to a manufacturing association. “For the first two years, he was the only guy we could go to for a sympathetic hearing. Now, I guess, we have Daley.”
The only problem: the White House now views its relationship with American business as repaired, now that Daley is in the fold, and does not intend to perform much more intensive outreach than it already has. “There is a sense here that business has gotten its tax breaks, now it’s time to shut up and perform,” says one White House source.
NICE WORK
Republicans members of the House Financial Services committee
intend to formally request copies of the report that Gene
Sperling, the new chairman of the White House Council of
Economic Advisers, was paid almost $900,000 to write for Wall
Street investment firm Goldman Sachs in 2008.
The report laid out a plan for Goldman to underwrite a $100 million program in Africa to educate and train more than 10,000 women in under-developed countries.
“It would be interesting to pull back the curtain on how these Wall Street firms dole out their charitable contributions and foundation money to people like Sperling and others,” says a House committee staffer. “What, exactly, did Sperling give them for that kind of money? A 10-page report? Something bigger? This guy is cozy with the wrong people at the wrong time for the American people.”
Letter to the Editor View all comments (15) | Leave a comment
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Winghunter| 1.10.11 @ 7:28AM
Why wasn't Valerie forced to resign after she lied right to our faces in saying she didn't know Van Jones when a video clearly has her saying just the opposite? - She, 'had been following [him] since his start in politics.'
Really sucks to have a MainSlime Media that refuses to be even slightly objective, doesn't it.
Shamus| 1.10.11 @ 12:39PM
Jarrett and Obama are BFF, but she screwed up so badly that she got demoted.
Joedoc| 1.10.11 @ 7:36AM
$900,000 for a report to train women in Africa? Obviously a payoff, but for what? It sickens me that this man is now employed by our government. It seems that the president, his staff, all of the people surrounding him are more interested in how much money they can steal, I mean earn, than in actually helping this country in any way, shape or form. They talk about spreading the wealth around. Just not theirs. This administration when it is all said and done will make the Marcos in the Phillipines look like pikers.
Bill Hussein O'Stalin| 1.10.11 @ 7:45AM
When you're appointing tax cheats and communists does another poser matter? It's a White House full of slime. They won't fool the public.
della street| 1.10.11 @ 8:40AM
Obama's briber-in-chief is a perfect symbol of the clueless and tone deaf dead weight in this Administration. Given that she's just another Chicago hack, with a lot of ill gotten gains, it is hard to fathom how she has stayed under the radar this long. I guess Obie still needs a hand holder on his way to the men's room.
WilliamInWien| 1.10.11 @ 10:07AM
William Daley Appointed! Now that is a REAL surprise! Is he not from the Chicago Daley Clan? Valerie Jarrett upset? Maybe she should return to Chi-Town and join the race for Mayor, speaking of which, did any one paying attention really believe that Rhambo would NOT be found a resident and eligible to run for mayor. Icing on the cake, trot out Carol Mosely Braun for mayor also and why not add in "Tombstone" Burris. Smart move, Larry, go back to academia but this time keep your mouth shut (on sensitive topics) despite the guise of "Academic Freedom". No, there is no "political class" in the US!
Richard Baker| 1.10.11 @ 10:09AM
Maybe Big Bill Thompson's picture (he was mayor during Al Capone's days) should be mounted prominently in the White House. After all didn't Hizzoner declare Chicago a "wide open city?"
Ralph Kramden| 1.10.11 @ 10:15AM
The only ones fooled by the appointment of another Chicago thug politician to the White House and touted as a move to the center, is the useful idiots who watch the mainstream media and those who inhabit the bubble world of the White House itself.
Floyd Looney| 1.11.11 @ 12:47AM
Thats about $10,000 per African woman being 'trained' (to do what??) That's a LOT of money in Africa, what exactly did they get? How much of that went into bribe African government officials?
Mike in Indiana| 1.12.11 @ 9:49AM
The notion that William Daley represents a "change in direction" for the Obama Administration is risible. Daley is the quintessential Chicago political grafter. In Chicago politics, it's all about "access", and access = money. Money buys access to politicians who then keep the money. Everyone close to Obama has been a player in this game: Valerie Jarrett, Michelle Obama, Rahm Emanuel, David Axelrod, and William Daley.
Gretchen| 1.12.11 @ 2:56PM
So what's new?
Adidas | 8.11.11 @ 5:52AM
is good
العاب | 4.10.12 @ 1:02PM
thank you