From Maureen Dowd in the New York Times:
The Obama wizards’ tactical skills seemed to desert them. The White House often ends up making its inhabitants tone-deaf (or even nuts), but this was an unusually quick trip into the cognitive third dimension.
Asked what he had learned from the Daschle fiasco, one Obama official replied, “Not to rationalize.”
They knew that the choice of Tom Daschle conflicted with the Obama change message, but they preferred to focus on how much the president owed his friend and how good they thought he would be in the job.
They wanted him because he was the ultimate insider and they lost him because he was the ultimate insider. Now Daschle’s punishment for getting too rich with special interests will be to get richer with special interests.
Obama aides call the morass a good wake-up call, and the president seems more aware of how the White House weather can cloud your thinking. Maybe that’s why he keeps trying to pop out to get a breath of fresh air — at an elementary school, at the Kennedy Center, at Camp David.
On Friday, a reporter asked Robert Gibbs if the president was already feeling cooped up.
“He’s a bit of a restless soul,” Gibbs said, laughing. “His idea of a crazy day is to take a long walk.”
A long walk where? somebody asked.
“In solitude and isolation,” Gibbs replied.
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