Obama, Axelrod and Gibbs. Below, Gibbs and his son Ethan at WH Halloween partyRobert Gibbs may some day replace David Axelrod, who is expected to leave in a couple of years or so:
Robert Gibbs does not seem particularly attached to his office.
There is a dormant fireplace ("a problem with the flue," Gibbs said), a cluttered desk, a flat-screen television and a smaller monitor simultaneously displaying C-SPAN, MSNBC, the networks. But all of that came with the place. He has done little decorating. The built-in bookshelves are half-filled with uncracked hardcovers, including a tamale cookbook, and there are cream-colored gaps of wall space between a poster of Bobby Kennedy, a blown-up photo of Gibbs's young son on Air Force One and a framed picture of President Obama watching his press secretary's inaugural briefing.
The office doesn't look lived-in because the occupant is only half-occupied these days with his official duties. Gibbs serves two roles in the White House. He is the public face and mouthpiece of the administration, but he is also the consummate presidential confidant -- the Obama traveling buddy during the campaign and ever-trusted Oval Office adviser. The Alabama native, who has been shaped by the Capitol Hill fray and campaign knife fights, is considered, along with Obama's presidential campaign manager, David Plouffe, a top candidate to take the place of senior strategist David Axelrod when the Washington-weary keeper of the Obama message leaves to focus on the 2012 reelection. That isn't happening anytime soon, which means Gibbs is stuck on double duty.
Gibbs is too discreet to say which job he prefers, but it's not hard to figure out. Listen to the press secretary talk about the media as a predictable, hyperventilating rabble obsessed with access and covering "everything as make or break," or observe his frustration percolating in the briefing room. Then ask him whether he has improved as a big-picture strategist, and the administration's leading purveyor of evasive, circuitous sentences suddenly speaks to the point.
"Oh, absolutely!" Gibbs said.
