The Outsiders Insider

[illinoisprogressive]

this is really good. Washington Post is doing a series called 'The Gurus"
this week they are profiling Barack Obama's chief of staff. This is the guy who steers Obama clear of things and helps him with the Washington Insider game. helps Obama know how to avoid pitfalls as this guy is an insider and the best in the business.
This also points to the musings of people who say Obama will surround himself with good advisors and the best he can find.
Looks like this is true.
it is a good read.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/08/26/AR2007082601446.html

Sen. Barack Obama had hired Pete Rouse for just such a moment.
It was the fall of 2005, and the celebrated young senator -- still new to Capitol Hill but aware of his prospects for higher office -- was thinking about voting to confirm John G. Roberts Jr. as chief justice. Talking with his aides, the Illinois Democrat expressed admiration for Roberts's intellect. Besides, Obama said, if he were president he wouldn't want his judicial nominees opposed simply on ideological grounds.

And then Rouse, his chief of staff, spoke up. This was no Harvard moot-court exercise, he said. If Obama voted for Roberts, Rouse told him, people would remind him of that every time the Supreme Court issued another conservative ruling, something that could cripple a future presidential run. Obama took it in. And when the roll was called, he voted no.

"Pete's very good at looking around the corners of decisions and playing out the implications of them," Obama said an interview when asked about that discussion. "He's been around long enough that he can recognize problems and pitfalls a lot quicker than others can."

Pete Rouse is the Outsider's Insider, a fixer steeped in the ways of a Washington that Obama has been both eager to learn and quick to publicly condemn. The meticulous workaholic rose through three decades of unglamorous legislating to become arguably the most influential Democratic aide in the Senate when he worked for then-Majority Leader Thomas A. Daschle (S.D.).