Presidential Puppetry

[Rayaan]

There is probably a more influential puppeteer behind Obama that I haven't brought up: Valerie Jarrett, Obama's closest advisor and closet friend.

One former senior White House official said that Jarrett is "the single most influential person in the Obama White House." According to interviews and reports, she "functions as the eyes and ears of Obama" and she is the "brains of Obama." Amongst other comparisons, she has also been called "Obama's Rasputin."

A Chicagoan who helped Mr. Obama navigate his rise through that city’s aggressive politics, Ms. Jarrett came to Washington with no national experience. But her unmatched access to the Obamas has made her a driving force in some of the most significant domestic policy decisions of the president’s first term, her persuasive power only amplified by Mr. Obama’s insular management style.

From the first, her official job has been somewhat vague. But nearly four years on, with Mr. Obama poised to accept his party’s renomination this week, her standing is clear, to her many admirers and detractors alike. “She is the single most influential person in the Obama White House,” said one former senior White House official, who like many would speak candidly only on condition of anonymity.

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/09/02/us/pol...wanted=all

Jarrett functions as Obama’s de facto conduit to the business community. Among the president’s economic team, only Jarrett, the former president of a Chicago real estate development firm, has actually run a multimillion-dollar business. (“The pendulum has swung from an administration that had a lot of experience in business to one that’s filled with regulators and academics,” one of Wall Street’s most prominent chief executives told me recently.) Her street cred with the private sector is an obvious asset to a president confronting a major recession. That said, Valerie Jarrett’s exquisite business connections have been important to Obama since his political ambitions first took hold more than a decade ago.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/26/magazi...wanted=all

As Edward Klein’s #1 bestseller The Amateur makes clear, it is Obama chief advisor Valerie Jarrett that sits in on all meetings, weighing in on everything from the humdrum to what suspected terrorist should be taken out. It is Jarrett who decides who sees Obama and who does not. It is Jarrett who is the eyes and ears of the White House, determining who is loyal to Obama and who is not, and who needs to be taken out.

http://www.westernjournalism.com/woman-b...e-jarrett/


Similarly, Jarret has been depicted as Obama's puppet master.