Meet the Press...Secretary

Photo by New York Times

President elect Barack Obama may not be the acting president, but he sure is acting like it. In the last few weeks he has announced many of his staff and cabinet apointments. Notable staffers already include Timothy F. Geithner as Treasury Secretary, Rahm Emanuel as White House Chief of Staff, and now Obama has picked Robert Gibbs to be his press secretary. Gibbs will be the man in between Obama's administration and the world for the next for years.

President Bush has shows just how difficult the job can be after several of his press secretaries resigned. Scott McClellan even wrote a scathing memoir denouncing the Bush administration and his role in it. The Bush administration wasn't exactly a role model for good press relations, and hopefully the press can look forward to more candor and access to the president during the next (at least) four years.

Some insiders have suggested that Gibbs has an uneven temperament which could be a problem when he is a press secretary, a job which requires calm under pressure. However a spirited approach to his job has also earned Gibbs Youtube fame and support from many Democrats. In this clip from the Hannity and Colmes, Gibbs responds to accusations that Barack Obama is friendly with confessed terrorist William Ayers. He tells Hannity that "guilt by association" is a bogus notion, and goes to to ask Hannity if he is an anti-semite. Notice Colmes is silent throughout, until he steps in to defend Hannity at about 4:25 in.



Robert Gibbs has been with Obama since 2004, abandoning a post as Obama's director of communications at his Chicago headquarters to go on the road with the iconic democrat. He soon became a senior strategist, and was vital in shaping Obama's image and policies. In the last four years he has helped guide the rookie Senator through the quagmire of national politics and the trenches of presidential campaigning. According to the New York Times, Gibbs was usually the last person Obama conferred with before addressing a public audience.

Before joining Obama's team he worked with Senator John Kerry and on various other political campaigns. Gibbs comes from Auburn, Alabama and graduated from North Carolina State University.