These are tough times, so perhaps it makes sense that Barack Obama is prepared to bring a second enforcer into the White House.
Last week, Obama named the sometimes-combative Illinois Congressman Rahm Emanuel to be chief of staff in his new administration.
Now, he reportedly will name Robert Gibbs to be press secretary.
Gibbs, 37, was senior strategist for communications and message in the Obama campaign.
As such, he defended his candidate, criticized the campaign of Obama’s opponent, Sen. John McCain, and took on the media when he believed that it had done Obama wrong.
“I work the referees a little bit if they’re unfair or inaccurate,” Gibbs told The Wall Street Journal in August. The other side is working on them, too. … I’m a protector of the image.”
Protecting the image, Gibbs became a YouTube sensation in October when he went toe-to-toe with Sean Hannity of Fox News after Hannity brought up Obama’s controversial association with William Ayers, the former Weather Underground member.
Gibbs pressed Hannity’s “guilt by association” argument, asking if Hannity was anti-Semitic because one of his recent guests was Andy Martin, a journalist who has made anti-Semitic statements.
A verbal slugfest ensued, each man scoring points with his own supporters.
When necessary, Gibbs will also take on his boss, Obama told the Journal.
“Robert is the guy I want in the foxhole with me during incoming fire,” Obama said. “If I’m wrong, he challenges me. He’s not intimidated by me.”
Gibbs has worked for the president-elect since 2004 when Obama ran for the Senate from Illinois.
Before that, Gibbs for a time was the press spokesman for the Sen. John Kerry presidential campaign, but he resigned in November 2003 after Jim Jordan, Kerry’s campaign manager, was fired.
Jordan had hired Gibbs to be the communications director at the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee in 2002, and he had also brought him onto the Kerry campaign.
A native of Auburn, AL, Gibbs was in the same Auburn High School class as Ace Atkins, the crime novelist, and Eric Harshbarger, the Lego mosaic builder.
The son of librarians, Gibbs was introduced to politics as a boy by his mother, Nancy, who, as a volunteer for the League of Women Voters, helped monitor the vote for ABC News.
“I popped my kids in the car and off we went to voting places, and then I got on the phone with ABC News. I guess it rubbed off,” Nancy Gibbs told the Auburn Villager.
Robert Gibbs majored in political science at North Carolina State University and started his own political career as a congressional intern during the summer.
He went on to become the spokesman for several campaigns, including that of former U.S. Sen. Ernest F. “Fritz” Hollings of South Carolina in 1998.
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1 Comments
#1. Julian Cox 08.14.2009
Gibbs is one of the dumbest son of a bitches ever to put on mens clothing. The only time he lies is when his lips move…just like Obama. He avoids answering questions, side steps issues and any legitimate questions until he can get the lies straight from Obama. Yes, we have Glenn Beck, Rush Linbaugh and Shawn Hannity and any one of them make 50 of Gibbs or Obama or the two of then together…because these paople tell the truth. Just seems something that NO ONE in the White House can do. Somewhere in Kenya a village idiot is missing.
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