Word: panetta
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...January 1996 there was another memo to Ickes and chief of staff Leon Panetta. This one, from Evelyn Lieberman, another deputy chief of staff, urged more coffees. In 1995 and '96 there would be a total of 103, several in a good week-- enough to produce mild caffeine overload and $27 million. But the really notable part of that memo was the warning by Lieberman that during two weeks of intense activity, "staff who routinely brief the President will be asked to be flexible during this period and accept that their briefings may be considerably truncated or eliminated...
...entire domestic agenda from his post in the Old Executive Office Building. "Some people come to Washington to take over a department and don't know that they can't do much without OMB's approval," Darman once observed. "But they learn--some more painfully than others." Leon Panetta, Clinton's first budget director, wielded similar clout by virtue of his mastery of fiscal arcana, his understanding of Capitol Hill and his rapport with Clinton. When Panetta was elevated to chief of staff, however, his replacement, Alice Rivlin, lacked the political acumen to translate her economic credentials into real sway...
...Panetta's departure leaves an enormous vacuum, and Raines appears eager to take advantage of it. In a White House that churns out micro-initiatives every day, Raines has squelched the Administration's habit of making such announcements without checking whether OMB has sanctioned a plan to pay for them with cuts elsewhere. This month he stepped in to require a more thorough vetting of measures that would tighten food-safety regulations. "There were more people running around with their own little pet projects," says White House spokesman Michael McCurry. "Raines has reined...
More basic have been strategic questions such as how far to move toward the G.O.P.'s higher Medicare cuts and how much to slash discretionary spending in the later years of the five-year budget. Seasoned congressional hands, such as the departing Panetta and legislative-affairs director John Hilley, had argued for holding fast to what had proved to be a winning position last year. As Panetta said of Raines in an interview, "Inevitably, he's going to have to hold his cards when it comes to a negotiation." Raines and Bowles wanted to show more flexibility early...
...known, he would have prevented Chinese weapons trader Wang Jun from taking coffee with the President on Feb. 6, 1996, a meeting even Clinton said later was "clearly inappropriate." When it comes to blame, Lake may spare no one--not even White House chief of staff Leon Panetta...