Chris Whipple, 2017

An easy read profiling every character to have held the Chief of Staff job from Obama dating all the way back to Nixon.  I got through the whole thing over a single weekend.

This character driven page turner is a great way to learn how the government works a the executive level

A couple of the more interesting takeaways for me:

• James Baker and Leon Panetta are OG.
• History has treated Ronald Reagan too well and George Bush 41 not well enough.
• This book has now made is abundantly obvious to me what people mean when they talk about the Washington establishment.  From one administration to the next within their respective parties, you’ll see the same names over and over passing titles back and forth.

On the Republican side, the story starts with Don Rumsfeld and Dick Cheney.  Both were Chief of Staff to Ford.  Both went on to be SecDefs.  Cheney then became VP and brought Rumsfeld back as SecDef for Bush 43.  Also see guys like Al Haig and JB III showing up time and time again.  Colin Powell (National Security Advisor, Joint Chief Chair, SecState) across three administrations.  The list goes on…

For the Dems, it’s Panetta, Podesta, Erskine Bowles… it’s easy to see why so many people are just sick of the Clinton machine and ready for it to go away.  Too many of the same faces cycling in and out of the big time jobs.

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Also Like: All too Human, Fire and Fury