After days of speculation President Obama has officially named William Daley as his new White House chief of staff, the position of right-hand man to the president and the manager of the administration’s legislative agenda on Capitol Hill.
Daley is a former commerce secretary under President Clinton and a current top executive at mega-bank JPMorgan Chase, one of the institutions at the center of the scandal over fraudulent foreclosures on tens of thousands of Americans.
William M. Daley will become the next White House chief of staff, Obama administration officials said Thursday. Currently a senior executive with JPMorgan Chase, and formerly a commerce secretary with the Clinton administration, Mr. Daley is expected to bring an outsider’s voice and decades of business experience to the West Wing.
The decision to hire Mr. Daley was made just one day after he visited with the president in the Oval Office at the White House. After the meeting on Wednesday, aides suggested that Mr. Obama was close to a decision, but had not said when it would be made.At JP Morgan Chase, Mr. Daley, the brother of Chicago Mayor Richard M. Daley, is responsible for its Midwestern operations. He has been a player in national politics, both publicly and behind the scenes, since the early 1990s, when then-President Bill Clinton enlisted him to use his connections with both business and labor leaders to shepherd through Congress the North American Free Trade Agreement with Mexico and Canada. It was enacted over the strong opposition of labor unions and many Democratic lawmakers.
The political impact of the move is a strong indication that President Obama intends to shift to the “center” in his policies and legislative agenda with Republicans in control of the House and a Senate poised for partisan gridlock.
As part of that migration to the right, Obama was seen as courting business interests with the decision to bring in Daley as his top aide. It’s a nod that the U.S. Chamber of Commerce appreciates, applauding the naming of Daley and calling the new chief of staff a “man of stature” in the corporate community. Remember that the Chamber was well-known for the hundreds of millions of dollars it spent to elect pro-corporate candidates in last November’s midterm elections.
The U.S. Chamber of Commerce is a fan of Bill Daley.
The president of the pro-business group that spent millions on behalf of Republican candidates last year called Obama’s decision to name the current J.P. Morgan banker as his chief of staff a “strong appointment.”
“Bill Daley is a man of stature and extraordinary experience in government, business, trade negotiations, and global affairs,” said Thomas J. Donahue. “He’s an accomplished manager and strong leader. We look forward to working with him to accelerate our recovery, grow the economy, create jobs, and tackle America’s global challenges.”
America’s corporate and financial giants have good reason to cheer William Daley as the president’s new chief of staff.
As an advisor to Bill Clinton in the ’90′s he was instrumental in crafting he North American Free Trade Agreement and ramming NAFTA through Congress despite strong objections from labor and progressive activists.
Daley also has been quick to embrace corporate talking points on a number of present-day legislative and regulatory fights, refusing to lead JPMorgan in assisting with the creation of a new consumer financial protection agency and opposing the health care reform legislation passed last year on the grounds that it was too far “left” for the country.
Oh, great. The man responsible for fraudulently foreclosing on tens of thousands of God-fearing, diligent, prudent, current-on-their-mortgages Americans is now Honest Obe’s new Chief of Staff?!?!
Next, no doubt given his new directive of “spreading the wealth around,” Daley will set about the business of foreclosing on even more homes. He’ll probably transfer title the Public Employee Unions; have to make sure they have enough money in their coffers to continue to dominate election spending! Can’t let the Evil U.S. Chamber catch up!
Better yet, just give everybody’s house to ACORN! Why screw around with indirect election influence like advertising when you can just manufacture thousands of fraudulent votes, register thousands of fraudulent voters, and hire the Black Panthers to intimidate likely Republicans!