A Spokesman So Close, He's the 'Barack Whisperer'

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Robert Gibbs

Robert Gibbs, a senior campaign strategist for President-elect Barack Obama, will likely be appointed press secretary in the Obama administration starting Jan. 20, 2009. Gibbs was formerly the press secretary for Sen. John Kerry's presidential campaign in 2004 and was previously communications director for the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee.

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In September, Charles Hurt, the New York Post's Washington bureau chief, was barred from the campaign plane after writing in a column that Obama "simply doesn't care if we win or lose the war in Iraq." Hurt declined to be interviewed.

Gibbs calls the charge "as irresponsible a line as I've read in this country in years." As for the other incidents, he says Reynolds, in his CBS blog post about the campaign's shortcomings, "hurt the feelings" of his staff and made complaints that the newsman had not raised in person. Gibbs says he limited Newsweek's access for pushing what he regarded as a false narrative that Obama could not connect with working-class voters.

Gibbs's aggressive side was on public display last month when he went toe-to-toe with Sean Hannity, castigating the Fox News host for building a program around an activist who accused Obama of having trained years ago for "a radical overthrow of the government." Over Hannity's objections, Gibbs read a list of comments by the activist, Andy Martin, that included once calling a judge a "slimy Jew."

"I find those comments despicable," Hannity said.

"But you put him on your show," Gibbs shot back. Fox executives later admitted that the booking had been a mistake.

Gibbs says he was trying to hammer home that it was "completely unacceptable" to give Martin a platform. But, he allows, "it was probably more fun than it should have been."

The incident provided a revealing glimpse of Gibbs's style. "I love dealing with reporters," he says. "Anybody who does this has to like a little of the back-and-forth."