Robert Gibbs Leaving the White House: The Privilege Was All Yours

White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs is the latest Obama apointee to announce his departure. Are the rats leaving a sinking ship? Or is this yet a further acknowledgment by the Obama administration that prepackaged messages provided during the campaign, immune to inquiry, have antagonized the press corps and isolated the president? Or both?

As reported by CNN:

"Gibbs said he will leave the podium after the upcoming State of the Union address -- but will remain in the Washington area as a pundit, supporting White House positions on cable television and in speeches.

'It's a remarkable privilege. It is in may ways the opportunity of a lifetime,' he told reporters at the daily White House briefing. But he added, 'We've been going at this pace for four years.'

No decision has been made about his replacement, he said.

In a written statement, Obama hailed Gibbs as 'a close friend, one of my closest advisers and an effective advocate from the podium.' But he said it was 'natural' for his longtime aide 'to want to step back, reflect and retool.'"

http://edition.cnn.com/2011/POLITICS/01/05/gibbs.leaving/index.html?hpt=T2

It was "natural" for Gibbs to step away from the "opportunity of a lifetime"? "Natural" my eye!

Even Maureen Dowd in a New York Times op-ed entitled "No Love From the Lefties" (http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/15/opinion/15dowd.html?hp), had declared in August that "Robert Gibbs should be yanked as White House press secretary," and concluded by stating:

"Let someone who shows less disdain for the press work with the press, and be the more engaging face of the White House."

Dowd contended that Gibbs had created a "moat" between the press and the presidency, but failed to comprehend that Gibbs was no more than the messenger, chosen to stymie discourse.

Listen to Anita Dunn, Obama's former Communications Director ("yanked" when she declared that mass murderer Mao Tse-Tung is one of her favorite political philosophers) explain how during the presidential campaign "very rarely did we communicate through the press anything that we didn’t absolutely control." (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NlGNhAnwp_Y)

With the 2012 election fast approaching, the Obama West Wing understands that whereas "absolute control" may have worked during the campaign when voters were flush with idealism, faith and hope, it no longer works two years later in an atmosphere of disillusionment, doubt, debt and despair.

Who will be next after Rahm Emanuel and Robert Gibbs? When will Hillary make her move?