Here’s the Dirt on Five Big Chicago Names in Jonathan Alter’s New Obama Book [Jarrett pwned ]

Chicago Magazine Book Review ^ | 3 June 2013 | Carol Felsenthal

[Fractal Trader]

Jonathan Alter is back on the Obama beat with a new book, The Center Holds: Obama and His Enemies, “detailing the backstory of the big events of 2011 and 2012.” Alter, who grew up here, makes no small claims for the book’s importance because its focus, he writes, is on the “most consequential” election of the nine he has covered since graduating from college in 1979.

[SNIP]

Obviously, Alter’s heart is with Obama and his team of strategists, who won the President a second term despite a miserable economy and evaporating enthusiasm for the hometown boy. “I make no apologies for suggesting that the U.S. dodged a bullet in 2012 by rejecting this [Romney and Paul Ryan’s] extreme view…”

The latest from Alter, 55, a 28-year veteran of Newsweek, now working as a columnist for Bloomberg View, is a sequel to The Promise, an analysis of Obama’s first year in the White House.

[Fractal Trader]

Here’s a few highlights on the Chicago players:

Valerie Jarrett: Alter writes that Jarrett, a big sister figure to the Obamas, is “so close to the family [met Barack and Michelle in 1991 before they were married when she interviewed Michelle for a job in City Hall] that she went on vacation with them.” Others, envious of her access, called her the “Keeper of the Essence.” Alter describes her as “the defender, protector, and avenger for the first family.” She was also called the “Night Stalker” because she “could and often did wander up to the family quarters after hours.” She regularly accompanied Obama on travels abroad and, although foreign policy was not a particular interest or responsibility of hers, “she would frequently take one of the half-dozen seats alongside the president in bilateral meetings, which meant one less seat for a policy expert.”

[SNIP]

One of Jarrett’s White House responsibilities—among her official titles is senior counselor to the President—was to be the administration’s liaison with business leaders, but some of these men (Alter specifies they were all men) were unimpressed. Alter quotes one unidentified CEO as saying, “When we go to the White House we talk to people we wouldn’t hire.”

[Army Air Corps]

Ping

[Viennacon]

Hmmm, was hoping for info on her skinsuit.

[goodnesswins]

"Alter quotes one unidentified CEO as saying, “When we go to the White House we talk to people we wouldn’t hire.”

SAYS it All!!!

[kiryandil]

The contest between Obama and Mitt Romney, Alter explains, was a “titanic ideological struggle over the way Americans see themselves and their obligations to one another.

And a titanic ideological struggle between Obama's minions at the IRS and the Tea Party.

Well, maybe not such a struggle. More like the IRS stomping blind newborn kittens.

[Fractal Trader]

Ping

[Tilted Irish Kilt]

Jarrett ~ the power behind the throne,
and the keeper of the scepter of “revenge “

[Mortrey]

“...who won the President a second term...”

So HE’S the one that trucked the negroes into Maine to vote!!!

What a patriot!

(by the way...the “Iranian of the Day” Valerie Jarrett, has probably had the Iranian website that dubbed her this, scrubbed-—no longer available—whatashock.)

http://iranian.com/main/singlepage/2008/valerie-jarrett

[maggief]

Portrayed as a woman who was “often uncomfortable with people she didn’t know,” Alter writes that Jarrett “put out the word early on [that] ‘We’re not making new friends.’” (There were a couple of exceptions, such as Attorney General Eric Holder and his wife.)

[bronxville]

“”Alter quotes one unidentified CEO as saying, “When we go to the White House we talk to people we wouldn’t hire.””

Agree, it does say it all.

[Slyfox]

[MestaMachine]

eric holder knows that dead men tell no tales. eric holder does not wish to be dead. vj can make him dead. End of story.

[Seizethecarp]

“‘We’re not making new friends.’ (There were a couple of exceptions, such as Attorney General Eric Holder and his wife.)”

Got that right:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/dana-milbank-all-in-the-white-house-family/2013/06/05/2010580c-ce2c-11e2-8845-d970ccb04497_story.html

“Technically, you don’t have to be related to an Obama adviser to get a job in this administration. But as he staffs top posts for his second term, the president is creating an incestuous arrangement. With few exceptions, loyalists and friends are being promoted, with little new blood admitted at the highest levels. The man who boasted about creating a “team of rivals” in his first term has this time been circling the wagons so tightly that people are bound to get motion sickness.”

[AllAmericanGirl44]

bkmk

[WildHighlander57]

Did anybody get a screencap of this Iranian of the Day site???

“..... (by the way...the “Iranian of the Day” Valerie Jarrett,has probably had the Iranian website that dubbed her this,scrubbed-—no longer available—whatashock.)

http://iranian.com/main/singlepage/2008/valerie-jarrett “