Dunn refused to discuss the details of “private conversations with the president,” dinners with the economic team or conversations with book authors.
But she added: “I take issue with the idea that [the White House] was a place where senior women weren’t involved in every aspect of every major decision and their voices weren’t heard.”
Obama, according to the book published by Harper Collins, failed to call on Romer after asking her male colleagues for their opinions. The snub prompted Romer to pass a note to Summers where she threatened to walk out of the dinner, according to the book.
The Obama White House has long been dogged by similar claims of exclusivity — his golf outings have been typically all-male affairs, though Melody Barnes, who heads the Domestic Policy Council was invited on at least one round of golf in October 2009 after much grumbling about Obama’s choice of golf buddies.
In a staff shake-up after the midterms, Obama pushed out his long time aides, Robert Gibbs, former press secretary, and senior aide David Axelrod, according to the book — both remain top advisers to Obama’s reelection campaign. Karen Finney, former communications director for the Democratic National Committee, made the shortlist to replace Gibbs — new Chief of Staff William Daley had expressed the desire to add more women to the inner circle — but the job ultimately went to Jay Carney, former press secretary to Vice President Biden.
On the economy, one key claim the book makes is that Geithner failed to follow through on a March 2009 order to look into dissolving Citigroup, and Obama realized that “the speed with which the bureaucracy could exercise my decision was slower than I wanted.”
A senior Treasury official pushed back against the book’s claims, saying that Suskind’s account of Geithner dragging his feet on on Obama’s Citigroup directive is simply untrue.
In the book Geithner also denies that he ignored Obama’s order, but the book offers a portrait of a president who was outmaneuvered by Beltway insiders, according to Suskind.
“The Citibank incident, and others like it, reflected a more pernicious and personal dilemma emerging from inside the administration: that the young president’s authority was being systematically undermined or hedged by seasoned advisers,” the book says.
Key decisions over the size of the February 2009 stimulus package and the restructuring of major banks were all hampered by disagreements, and left Obama’s advisers feeling adrift.
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