For Obama's Political Knots, He's the 'Fixer'

This is a fresh take on President Obama's Deputy Chief of Staff, Jim Messina. The article is a little tabloidy, but does a fair job of describing Messina's predominantly political role within the White House. As the title indicates, his primary responsibility is untangling Obama's political messes.

Along the same lines is this profile of White House Press Secretary, Robert Gibbs. Time not only examines Gibbs' well-publicized close relationship with Obama (a significant departure from the Bush years, when the position of Press Secretary was somewhat isolated from the President) but also briefly describes how the White House shifted strategy on the fight over the recently signed stimulus package.

Related to this weeks readings and the recently completed 2008 Presidential Election, Messina would certainly be characterized as party loyalist, while Gibbs is also a party loyalist, but has a certain level of candidate loyalty too.

This is a lot of biographical candy, but each article offers a splice about how the Obama Administration plans to deal with Congress and other political issues.

**UPDATE** There is one more article that I found. Ryan Lizza from the New Yorker did a piece on White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel. The article is quite long and can be a bit vulgar (just a warning). Like Messina and Gibbs, Emanuel is absolutely a party loyalist. But he also has had a long relationship with Obama.