West Wing Week Video June 10

Stotus, Basketball and Life at the Obama White House

The New York Times has a magazine piece today on the Obama White House with emphasis on the 20 somethings, 30 somethings and 50 somethings that work there, including Reggie Love, Obama's personal aide; Jon Favreau, a speechwriter and my fave, Sam Kass, the 30-year-old assistant White House chef who often tends to the garden (pictured).

On Tuesdays, the secretary of the interior, Ken Salazar; the Federal Communications Commission chairman, Julius Genachowski; Senator Bob Casey Jr. of Pennsylvania; and Senator Jon Tester of Montana used to have an early basketball game. Occasionally, Axelrod would join them. Once or twice, Casey and Tester stayed to play a game or two with the later-arriving junior staff members. Basketball is such an obsession that Dan Pfeiffer, the White House communications director, has been known to jokingly admonish staff members to plan their travel around pickup games.

Then there is Stotus — the softball team of the United States (a word play on Potus, the acronym for president of the United States). Stotus, a team made up of White House staff members, gathered on humid summer evenings last year to take on rivals like the Democratic National Committee and then would sometimes celebrate with snacks and drinks afterward at local restaurants and bars. Nonplayers often came out to cheer, thumbing their BlackBerrys as they watched the game. The sports are all in good fun — a chance to unwind after work and connect with friends — but an undercurrent of personal fitness runs throughout.

“People are commenting on it,” Ziskend teased Lesser at Café Dupont, referring to his housemate’s new and improved physique.

“Really?” Lesser asked, laughing. He looked up and added, a touch more seriously: “Really? Like who?”

THE OBAMAS ARE the first White House family in modern memory to treat Washington like an actual city. They moved from Chicago, another urban center with a large African-American population, and they invited inner-city children to help with the new garden and to trick-or-treat and hunt Easter eggs at the White House. According to the CBS Radio News correspondent Mark Knoller, the press corps’ unofficial White House historian, George W. Bush ate dinner or lunch at a restaurant anywhere in the country only 21 times during his eight years in office; the Obamas dined out nearly a dozen times in their first year alone. Read it all here.

Obama is calm even when angry:

Obama doesn’t yell, his aides say. He’s calm even when he’s angry. But his stern glance is far worse than any tirade. To many of his acolytes, the president is a role model. “This is a person who beat the odds to be a United States senator and who has offered you a job,” Reggie Love says. “This was a moment in time where things will only be this way for a little bit, and they were, and I was proud to take the opportunity.”

More than anything, they repeat, over and over, they don’t want to embarrass the president.

Michelle Obama gives dating advice to the younger staffers:

Showing up to work each day at the most prestigious address in America can feel a bit like finals week in college. They are always on call, always working hard. To these mostly 20-something staff members, Obama is a strict father, one with high expectations, whom they don’t want to disappoint. Michelle Obama is more of a big sister, tapping her toes about when that boyfriend is ever going to propose or playing Cupid by suggesting a match. She gives young, single White House staff members the kind of dating tips she offered in Glamour magazine’s December issue, warning young women: “Cute’s good. But cute only lasts for so long.

Obama Spends Valentine's Day at Camp David

Obama shoots hoops with Reggie Love (this photo wasn't from today)

Update: Obama will be headed back to Washington today instead of tomorrow due to the weather.

Obama spoke to Gen. Stanley McChrystal this morning and later he'll speak with Jim Jones. This morning Obama shot hoops with Reggie Love before heading off to Camp David to meet up with the family.

Obama and Staff Game of Hoops

Game night:

In the evening, the President will play basketball with Cabinet Secretaries and Members of Congress on the White House basketball court. Expected attendees include:
Secretary of Housing & Urban Development Shaun Donovan
Secretary of Education Arne Duncan
Secretary of the Treasury Tim Geithner
Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar
Representative Mike Arcuri (D-NY)
Representative John Boccieri (D-OH)
Representative Brad Ellsworth (D-IN)
Representative Jeff Flake (R-AZ)
Representative Baron Hill (D-IN)
Representative Jay Inslee (D-WA)
Representative Frank Kratovil (D-MD)
Representative Rick Larsen (D-WA)
Representative Patrick Murphy (D-PA)
Representative John Shimkus (R-IL)
Representative Heath Shuler (D-NC)
Lynn Sweet

Obama's Sit Down With 16 Newspapers

From Politico's Playbook, Obama sat down for a roundtable interview yesterday and today, made some headlines:

President Obama did a 55-minute roundtable interview in the Roosevelt Room yesterday with reporters from 16 regional newspapers, producing huge play in key states for his message that voting for the stimulus bill is voting for jobs:

Anchorage Daily News: 'Obama calls Alaska gas pipeline promising'
Columbus Dispatch: 'Stimulus not perfect but will help Ohio, Obama says'
Dayton Daily News: 'Stimulus package provides relief to Ohio, Obama says'
Detroit Free Press: 'Obama: I can offer serious auto help'
Detroit News' 'Obama to Big 3: Craft plan that works'
Indianapolis Star: '[P]resident declines to comment on $2.5M proposed for Carmel water park'
(Norfolk) Virginian-Pilot: 'Obama says he will not act quickly on offshore drilling'
Omaha World-Herald: 'Obama praises Nelson's role in stimulus bill'
Philadelphia Inquirer: 'Obama: Plan will save millions of jobs'
Portland (Maine) Press Herald: 'Obama: Snowe, Collins 'outstanding' senators'
(Raleigh) News & Observer: 'Obama talks about N.C.'s big issues'
Salt Lake Tribune 'Obama: Oil lease sale needed scrutiny'

ALSO INCLUDED: California, Florida and Hawaii scribes.

Deb Price in the Detroit News: 'What, exactly, was the brick-size wooden box with the red button on top, on the table in front of President Barack Obama? 'If any of you really got me mad, I would press it,' Obama said with a mischievous laugh.' The president went on to explain: 'These are in every room that I'm in. And so if there was an emergency, Secret Service – you know, I could press this. Some of 'em, you knock over, and Secret Service rushes in.'

For Maureen: AT ONE POINT, THE PRESIDENT CORRECTS HIMSELF FROM 'STIMULUSES' TO 'STIMULI.' And he tells Dale Eisman of The Virginian-Pilot: 'What we've done is, we've identified where are some areas of military spending that can occur within that two-year [stimulus] timeframe, but doesn't have what's called a long tail – it doesn't perpetuate long-term programs.'

SHOT – Charlotte Observer, 'Obama not taking sides in UNC-Duke: At a roundtable of regional reporters in the Roosevelt Room of the White House, the president came close to predicting a rebound for Duke basketball's Coach Mike Krzyzewski at tonight's highly anticipated Carolina-Duke game. He said Duke is 'coming off one of the worst losses it has had in several years,' but noted that Coach K had been working the team pretty hard this week. 'They might be fired up,' he said. ... [He] played a pickup game with many of the [UNC] Tar Heel standouts before the May primary. Pointing to his body man, former Duke basketballer Reggie Love, he said he has to remain on the sidelines, as it were. 'If I said anything contrary to Duke, I might not be able to find my Blackberry,' he said.'

Portraits of Obama's People

Cool photos of Obama's team (52 of them) at the NYT by photographer Nadav Kander, who narrates the online portrait gallery with Kathy Ryan, director of photography. Really, really nice work. Love Reggie Love, David Axelrod, Tom Daschle, Rahm Emanuel, Ken Salazar, Peter Orszag. 

Obama's Body Man Reggie Love

obama seems to have a knack at surrounding himself with decent people.

nyt: Mr. Love now knows that when it comes to food, Senator Obama “eats pretty much anything, from chicken wings and barbecue and ribs to grilled fish and steamed broccoli.” But when he is campaigning in a small town with limited options, a cheeseburger is always a good bet. (“Cheddar is the cheese of choice,” Mr. Love added.)

He knows that “the boss,” as he calls Mr. Obama, likes MET-Rx chocolate roasted-peanut protein bars and bottles of a hard-to-find organic brew — Black Forest Berry Honest Tea. He keeps a supply of both on hand.

And he has learned that all campaigns have their superstitions — Senator John McCain has a penchant for heads-up coins — and that Mr. Obama is no exception. That means that Mr. Love and Mr. Obama, for luck, play basketball every primary day.

Mr. Love, 26, is Mr. Obama’s body man, the personal aide who shadows the senator and anticipates everything he needs — and everything he does not need. He is not a bodyguard (security is provided by the Secret Service), but rather the ultimate assistant, rarely more than a body length away from the candidate.

Young, eager campaign aides are stock characters in movies and on television, but few have quite the élan of Mr. Love, who, at 6-foot-5, is about three inches taller than the tall candidate, fitter than the fit candidate (he can bench press more than 350 pounds) and cooler than the cool candidate.

“There’s no doubt that Reggie is cooler than I am,” Mr. Obama said, laughing, in a phone interview. “I am living vicariously through Reggie.”

Mr. Love, who played football and basketball at Duke, usually starts the day with Mr. Obama with a dawn workout in the hotel gym. They end the day more than 15 hours later, often unwinding before bed by watching ESPN’s “SportsCenter” or that night’s big game. (Mr. Obama sometimes flosses his teeth to ESPN while lying down.)