WASHINGTON – Ushering in change at the top of his team, President Barack Obama has chosen William Daley to be his new chief of staff, choosing a veteran political manager with Wall Street ties to direct an operation now steaming toward re-election mode. Daley will step into one of the most important and influential jobs in American government as an adviser and gatekeeper to Obama. He will replace Pete Rouse, the interim chief of the last three months, a behind-the-scenes Obama adviser who did not want the position permanently and recommended Daley for it. Rouse will remain as a counselor to the president, an elevated position from his former job as senior adviser. Daley is expected to start within the next couple of weeks. Two senior administration officials confirmed Obama's decision to The Associated Press, speaking on condition of anonymity because it has not been announced. Obama is expected to introduce Daley on Thursday afternoon at the White House. Although Daley carries the name of a dynastic family of politics in Chicago, which is Obama's hometown, he and the president haven't been personally close. He offers criteria Obama wants: an outsider's perspective, credibility with the business community, familiarity with the ways of the Cabinet and experience in navigating divided government. Daley also wants the job. At 62, the move will thrust him into the heart of national politics just as Obama adapts to a new reality in Washington, with Republicans controlling the House, working to gut his signature health care law and pushing for major cuts in spending. The White House shake up offered eye-catching symmetry to Washington's first busy week of the new year, change at both ends of Pennsylvania Avenue a day after a reconstituted Congress was convened with Republicans in charge in the House and in a position of greater empowerment in the Senate, albeit still in the minority there. Obama informed his senior advisers of the change in a meeting on Thursday morning. He made clear that no one is more valuable to him than Rouse, according to one of the officials in the room. The set-up means Obama gets both officials: Daley to run the grueling operation, Rouse to offer a range of advice and his years of experience with the Senate. The move comes as Obama ushers in change across his senior leadership — the result of internal staff fatigue, a need to shift energy and people to Obama's re-election campaign, and an adaptation to the fresh limits on Obama's power. Although many of the names of the players may not be familiar to the electorate, the collective personnel changes will influence not just Obama but the national agenda. Considered the most consuming job in the White House, the chief of staff shapes nearly everything that Obama deals with — how the president spends his time, how he pursues his strategies on foreign and domestic policy, how he deals with a politically deadlocked Congress and a skeptical electorate. Rouse has been leading a review of how to restructure the White House since even before Rahm Emanuel quit the chief of staff's job in October to run for Chicago mayor. Now the changes are coming quickly. White House press secretary Robert Gibbs announced Wednesday he was resigning by early February, senior adviser David Axelrod will be leaving soon, and both of Obama's deputy chiefs of staff, Jim Messina and Mona Sutphen, are exiting soon, too. David Plouffe, a key member of Obama's inner circle as his former presidential campaign manager, will be joining the senior staff of the White House on Monday. Daley emerged as a natural candidate, particularly after other internal candidates ended up in other positions. He is close to some of those in Obama's orbit, including Axelrod, Emanuel and senior presidential adviser Valerie Jarrett. Daley's brother, Richard Daley, is the mayor of Chicago. William Daley has not sought office himself, but has long been immersed in politics. He helped President Bill Clinton pass the North American Free Trade Agreement and later served as Clinton's commerce secretary. Later, he ran Al Gore's 2000 presidential campaign and the historic recount effort that ended with Gore conceding the race to George W. Bush. When Obama launched his presidential campaign, the Daley family put aside its deep connections to Bill and Hillary Clinton and endorsed the young Illinois senator. Until then, Obama and the Daleys had largely operated separately in Illinois politics — not helping each other much but not attacking either. After Obama's victory, Daley helped oversee the presidential transition. The choice of Daley, a lawyer and banker who serves as Midwest chairman of JPMorgan Chase, could raise questions about the White House's closeness with Wall Street just as Obama is eager to enforce reforms that benefit the little guy. One official close to the president insisted that Daley understands that his job is to enforce and advance the president's agenda. Daley

I POSTED THIS MAINLY FOR THE LIBS WHO BELIEVE OBAMA HAD SOMETHING TO DO WITH "PLANNING THE MISSION" TO KILL BIN LADEN IT SHOULD BE MORE THAN OBVIOUS IN THE AFTERMATH CLUSTEF*CK THAT THIS ADMINISTRATION AND OBAMA SPECIFICALLY .........COULDN'T PLAN A TRIP TO A HOT DOG STAND WITHOUT HELP..... LET ALONE A COMPLEX AND DANGEROUS MILITARY MISSION AND ANYBODY WHO THINKS OTHERWISE EITHER WORKS FOR THE MAINSTREAM MEDIA OR SHOULD HAVE A CARETAKER LOOKING AFTER THEM TO KEEP THEM FROM BUMPING THEIR LITTLE HEADS ======================================================================================== By JOSH GERSTEIN & MATT NEGRIN | 5/2/11 11:37 PM EDT Updated: 5/4/11 5:39 AM EDT White House Press Secretary Jay Carney on Tuesday publicly revised the administration’s account of the raid that killed Osama bin Laden, telling reporters that the Al Qaeda leader wasn’t armed during the assault and didn’t use one of his wives as a shield. On Monday evening, the White House had backed away from key details in its narrative about the raid, including claims by senior U.S. officials that bin Laden had a weapon and may have fired it during a gun battle with U.S. forces. Officials also retreated from claims that one of bin Laden’s wives was killed in the raid. Carney read a statement to reporters Tuesday seeking to clarify discrepancies. He said bin Laden “was not armed.” When a U.S. “assaulter” approached bin Laden, the Al Qaeda leader’s “wife” rushed the assaulter. That woman was shot but not killed, Carney said. “What is true,” Carney said, is that “we provided a great deal of information with great haste.” “Obviously, some of the information was — came in piece by piece and is being reviewed and updated and elaborated upon,” he said. Carney told reporters that “resistance does not require a firearm” but directed questions about how bin Laden “resisted” to the Pentagon. Carney’s clarification came after a day when the administration’s account had appeared to change but had not been publicly corrected. At a televised White House briefing Monday afternoon, Deputy National Security Adviser John Brennan had said bin Laden joined in the fight that several residents of the Abbottabad, Pakistan, compound put up against the Navy SEALs during the 40-minute operation. “He [bin Laden] was engaged in a firefight with those that entered the area of the house he was in. And whether or not he got off any rounds, I quite frankly don’t know,” Brennan said. At a Pentagon briefing earlier Monday, a senior defense official said bin Laden used a woman as a human shield so he could fire shots. “He was firing behind her,” the official said. In another background briefing early Monday morning, a senior administration official also said bin Laden put up a fight. “He did resist the assault force. And he was killed in a firefight,” the official said. However, during a background, off-camera briefing for television reporters later Monday, a senior White House official said bin Laden was not armed when he was killed, apparently by the U.S. raid team. Another White House official familiar with the TV briefing confirmed the change to POLITICO on Monday night, adding, “I’m not aware of him having a weapon.” “The bottom line is the team that entered that room was met with resistance and took appropriate action,” said a third American official. The White House on Monday night declined to elaborate on the nature of the resistance bin Laden allegedly put up. However, an official confirmed that the Al Qaeda founder was shot twice, once in the head and once in the chest. At the Monday evening briefing for TV reporters, a senior official also corrected what Brennan described earlier as “my understanding” that the woman who acted as a shield for bin Laden was one of his wives and was killed. “A different guy’s wife was killed,” a different official familiar with the briefing for TV reporters said Monday night. Bin Laden’s wife was “injured but not killed,” the official said. Another official familiar with the operation said it did not appear that any woman was used as a human shield, but that the woman killed and the one injured were hurt in the crossfire. The official said he believed Brennan had mixed up the episode involving bin Laden’s wife with another encounter elsewhere in the compound. “Two women were shot here. It sounds like their fates were mixed up,” said the U.S. official. “This is hours old and the full facts are still being ascertained as those involved are debriefed.” In another discrepancy, Brennan said during his on-the-record briefing that bin Laden’s son Khalid was killed in the attack. However, the official White House transcript had the counterterrorism adviser saying it was another son, Hamza, who perished in the raid. The White House didn’t offer a reason Monday for any of the changes. However, Brennan noted during his televised briefing that his information came from reports from the