Obama's inner circle shows White House's strengths

June 10, 6:26 PMCincinnati Liberal ExaminerJay Riestenberg

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President Obama with Senior Advisor Valerie Jarrett, Press Secretary Roberts Gibbs, Senior Advisor David Axelrod, and White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel. Photo: Flickr Images.

Each White House reinvents itself. President Obama’s team is no different. With just over 130 days in office the president has assembled a team of talented, political minds. Even with a democratic held congress and increasing support for the Democratic Party thanks to GOP doing their own soul searching, the President needs a strong team to keep the White House powerful. This team, while respecting the Constitution’s checks and balances, must at the same time ignore them. They are determined to make and keep the White House powerful.

At the top is the White House Chief of Staff, Rahm Emanuel. Emanuel, previously serving as Deputy Chief of Staff during the Clinton Administration and a 3 term U.S. Congressman from the Chicago area, is known for his skilled political mind. White House Senior Advisors David Axelrod and Valerie Jarrett play a major role in the day to day running of White House, along with being the top aides to the President. These two Chicago natives are veterans of Obama’s 2008 race and are both longtime friends of the President and the First Lady. Robert Gibbs, the White House Press Secretary, also plays a major role in setting the White House’s agenda as he has become the press corps go to guy for access. These four members of Obama’s staff basically make up Obama’s inner circle and power of the executive branch.

While there is no mention of any of these positions in Article 1 Section 2 of the U.S. Constitution, they are certainly the most important positions in the White House, next to the President himself of course. Unlike President Bush, who tended to have closer relationships with cabinet members such as Secretary of State Rice and Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld, Obama is relying on the same people who got him into office in the first place. Axelrod, Jarrett, and Gibbs have been with Obama from the beginning, and Emanuel is a close Chicago-native ally of the President. This administration’s strong team will certainly be a plus for the President when it comes to tough fights over healthcare, defense spending, taxes, and national security related issues. While the President may be in front of the TV cameras and on the front pages of the newspapers, it is important to know who is behind the scenes doing the work of the government.