Top Clinton Aide John Podesta To Return To White House As Senior Counselor To Obama

Jim Kuhnhenn: Top Clinton Aide John Podesta To Return To White House As Senior Counselor To Obama:

John Podesta, a former chief of staff to President Bill Clinton and a trusted Democratic operative, will join the White House staff as a senior counselor to President Barack Obama, two persons familiar with the move said late Monday…. Podesta is the founder and former president of the Center for American Progress, a Democratic think tank with close ties to the White House…. The two persons familiar with the development confirmed it to The Associated Press on the condition they weren’t named because the announcement was not official.

Podesta, 64, is well respected in political circles both as a strategist and a policy thinker. He would likely step into the role played by Pete Rouse at the White House, who is expected to leave…

Everybody I know who was watched John Podesta operate has been extremely impressed. He has punched well, well above his weight at least twice in his recent career. First, he managed to bring order and unity of purpose to the seven-ring circus that was the Clinton White House–an achievement that leads nearly everyone to have a very high opinion of him, with the highest held by his predecessors as Clinton White House chiefs of staff. Second, he managed to make the Center for American Progress into an organization that has the technocratic policy, the public relations media, and the political savvy and influence of Cato, AEI, Heritage, CEI, AAF, and a few more all by itself–in spite of having at most 1/10 the budget of its dark-side sisters.

That is an astonishingly good record of accomplishment in Washington, where most of what is built costs a lot of money and immediately sinks into the swamp…