The sad part is that the New York Times and International Herald Tribune (the former’s sister publication) only confirm it inadvertently. Apparently this wasn’t something notable enough to be mentioned in anything other than passing.
A glimpse of Axelrod’s day offers a look at how he spends his time.
He arrives at the White House shortly after 7 a.m., a torturously early hour for a man known during the campaign for sending messages until the small hours of the morning. A cup of Earl Grey tea is waiting for him — he hates the taste of coffee and recalls having only two cups in his life — as he walks into his first appointment of the day, a meeting in the office of Rahm Emanuel, the chief of staff, who has been a friend for 25 years.
He attends the economic briefing in the Oval Office, where the latest news and grim statistics are relayed to the president by a battery of advisers. When the classified intelligence briefing begins, Axelrod leaves the room. Later, he and a speechwriter sit down with Obama to review the three-ring binder containing each speech or statement the president will make that day.
Often in the late afternoons, he walks to the Situation Room to attend some meetings of the National Security Council, stopping to grab a handful or two of the M&Ms that are in a large bowl outside the room.
He also helps decide which fights to pick and which ones to avoid, making him a leading voice in setting the political tone in Washington. The recent back-and-forth with Rush Limbaugh, for example, was explicitly authorized by Axelrod, who told aides that it was not a moment to sit quietly after Limbaugh said he hoped that Obama would “fail.”
That authorization came from a pretty high-ranking source. The New York Times notes that, “Axelrod’s political advice carries more weight than most anyone else’s on President Obama’s payroll.” And he’s authorizing fauxrage attacks on Rush Limbaugh. Sad, really.
And as Ed Morrissey points out, the White House has an interesting set of priorities. There’s no time or energy to receive the British Prime Minister in the proper manner, yet there’s time to launch attacks on a conservative talk show host?
by Stephan Tawney on Mon, Mar 9, 2009