Obama Hotties 2010 Update: Who Is Still Standing, and Hot?
Last year, the incoming Barack Obama administration promised to be... a whole bunch of "hotties" who would impress us with their stylish dress as they solved all our problems. Many of these hotties just had a bad year.
Let us catch up with them, shall we?
Domestic Policy Council Director Melody Barnes is doing fine. Keep on keepin' on, Melody!
Tim Geithner survived his tax scandal (so long ago!), but he's been dogged by criticisms from liberals since day one. More recently, Matt Taibbi's hysterical Rolling Stone piece called for Geithner to be put against the wall for being a Wall Street toady who organized massive and indefensible giveaways to major financial institutions. Hatred of Geithner is the one thing that can unite the left and right in these troubled times.
Mona Sutphen had a quiet year, though Politico recently "reported" (that is in scare quotes because they literally just reprinted some GOP opposition research) that she was registered to be a lobbyist in 2003.
Reggie Love! He is fine. Who could hate Reggie Love?
UN Ambassador Susan Rice has also come out of 2009 relatively unscathed, which is weird, because surely at some point the conservatives who hate the UN and complain about Obama's foreign policy all the time would focus their attention on her, right? She's one to watch in 2010!
Speechwriter Jon Favreau has not personally come under attack much, but the old "Obama gives speeches too much" meme resurfaces every time Obama gives a speech. Also Peter King says we will not be safe until Favreau starts inserting the word "terrorism" into every paragraph of every speech. Oh and he's supposedly dating Rashida Jones so honestly he is doing just fine for himself.
Desiree Rogers, yeesh. She is Obama's social secretary and she had a terrible year. First of all, having a social director who is actually concerned with Society as it exists outside the Kennedy Center is obviously a terrible and frivolous thing. Secondly, the Obamas are rapidly approaching Clintonian "interlopers" territory with the toxic DC establishment. Sally Quinn, for example, is not happy that Rogers is "not of Washington." The completely inane "party crashers" scandal has allowed a lot of people to argue that this non-Washingtonian, who does not care about Sally Quinn and her fucking terrible parties, should resign immediately.
Peter Orszag was loved and admired and respected by everyone until, uh, yesterday, when it was revealed that he left his girlfriend for some other lady who is on the TV, and then his old girlfriend had a baby, and the baby is his. It is not really a political scandal, or even any of our business, at all, but it is an odd thing to happen to the nerdy economist dude who is every wonk's favorite member of the administration.
Ellen Moran resigned as Communications Director after like two months and went to work for the Secretary of Commerce or something. Her replacement, Anita Dunn, became a scalp for Glenn Beck, after he revealed that she quoted Mao in a speech.
Rahm Emanuel is the target of plenty of conspiracy theories, from the left, and right, that cast him as the man behind almost everything the administration does that you don't like and every quote from an anonymous administration official that you find objectionable. To be fair, he probably is the guy behind those things, 90% of the time. Oh, and Page Six says today that he is going to resign. They say this because someone said this on The McLaughlin Group on Sunday. Breaking: someone at Page Six watched The McLaughlin Group on Sunday!
Eugene Kang: who the fuck is this?
Samantha Power had to resign from the Obama campaign for calling Hillary Clinton a Monster. Now she is on the National Security Council! She is doing fine now.
Eric Holder keeps taking a lot of shit for "wanting to uphold the law" by doing things like closing Guantanamo and releasing torture memos and trying criminals in criminal courts.
Political director Patrick Gaspard has only taken shit from political hacks who think the White House has a great deal of control over every single campaign in the nation. So—he failed in the Virginia governors race, he messed up the Paterson/Cuomo situation and this upcoming midterm should basically be the end of him. Oh and he also worked for ACORN and is a Socialist or something, who knows.
Basically, this list of foul things happening to lovely people (besides Rahm) is why Washington cannot have nice things.