Transcript

MARVIN KALB:  The new President, instead of handling just the economy, has decided to do something well beyond that, and he’s laid out an ambitious agenda including energy, health care, education, each one of which could take at least one term to get through successfully, but he’s decided to do it all at the same time. So that’s a stunning agenda for the country.

Now, once you’ve got the agenda, you’ve got to begin to make it happen. That means you’ve got to have the people. That means you turn to all of the President’s advisers and you say, now, what are we supposed to do, and theoretically, they’re going to tell you.

Now, just think about this for a sec, there is the – at the very top of this magnificent institution, the White House, there is the Chief of Staff right now, Rahm Emanuel; under him three Senior Advisers, David Axelrod, Valerie Jarrett, and Pete Rouse. Then there is Larry Summers doing the Economic Council, and General Jones doing the National Security Council. Then there are four policy Czars – for health care, energy, Native American Affairs, and Urban Affairs, and then, of course, there’s the Vice President. So you’ve got all of these people in the White House doing their thing led by one person who, no matter how brilliant, how well organized, how disciplined, is going to have to be in charge, he’s the middle of that spoke, he’s going to have to be in charge of all of these different elements of the White House and of his projected national policy.

And in a recent issue of The New Yorker magazine, there was a quote from Joshua Bolten, who was Chief of Staff for President George W. Bush, and he said that the job that Rahm Emanuel now has is like fitting a lot of large personalities and brains and portfolios into a relatively small space. And in a 24 hour cycle, assuming time for sleep, exercise, family responsibilities, and occasionally watching a basketball game, this President is going to have to run all of these things. So the operating question is, is this a manageable operation or even expectation?

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