Word: panetta
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...White House chief of staff Leon Panetta plans on running an extremely tight ship sometime very soon
...think Leon Panetta is a terrific choice ... He's just a terrific guy. He's got a good sense of humor, and he's got a really good sense of the American people and what they want." -- Clinton adviser Paul Begala, commenting on Leon Panetta's appointment as White House chief of staff...
...Begala felt as if he were from a different country than some of the senior Clinton officials ... The worst of them, Begala felt, was Leon Panetta, the former congressman from Carmel Valley. Begala felt that of all 435 congressional districts, Panetta's was least representative of America -- the pure, elitist, unreal world of California dreaming. Panetta seemed to love talking about nothing more than deficit reduction ... In private, ((Begala)) began applying a new label to the budget director: 'The Poster Boy for ) Economic Constipation."' -- from Bob Woodward's The Agenda: Inside the Clinton White House
Even people who know and like Leon Panetta aren't sure he can bring order to the devolutionary Clinton White House. Like Mack McLarty, Panetta appears unfailingly polite. Like Clinton, he comes from modest roots, and straddles his party's left and moderate flanks. His self-deprecating humor is disarming: top aides say he cannot go more than a few minutes in meetings without making some self-critical wisecrack. Reporters lost track of the number of times Panetta, who turned 56 last Tuesday, observed -- with a roll of his eyes -- how his new job was "one hell of a birthday...
Ellis said the likelihood of this "working opposition" is what led to Clinton's appointment of Leon Panetta--whom Ellis said is liked and respected on Capitol Hill--as Chief of Staff...