In the newest round of White House shake-ups, none other than White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs is set to leave. Or perhaps it’s not so much an exit as an inter-departmental transfer across the total Obama operation.
The New York Times reports:
Robert Gibbs, the White House press secretary and close confidante to President Obama, said Wednesday that he will step down and become an outside political adviser to the president and his re-election campaign.
Mr. Gibbs said that he intends to leave the podium in early February. His successor has not yet been decided, he said, but will likely be announced within the next two weeks.
In addition, Politico reported last night:
Until recently, many in the building had expected Gibbs to stay. But according to sources, he is now seriously considering an exit from the West Wing — a move that would allow him to work on Obama’s 2012 reelection campaign and act as a media surrogate for the president, the sources say.
You might recall that Gibbs in fact held the post of campaign press secretary for Obama during the 2008 election cycle. Indeed, he once got into an excellent one-on-one with Sean Hannity in a post-debate spin room, about the subject of guilt by association:
