Guess which top Obama aide will leave first

Wild cards: Director of National Intelligence Dennis C. Blair, CIA Director Leon Panetta, press secretary Robert Gibbs, National Economic Council Director Lawrence H. Summers, Office of Health Reform Director Nancy-Ann DeParle, Office of Energy and Climate Change Policy Director Carol M. Browner, adviser David Axelrod, adviser Valerie Jarrett, adviser Pete Rouse.

Une petite affaire

Don't mark your calendars! According to an official French communique released Tuesday, President Nicolas Sarkozy is coming to Washington on March 30 to meet with President Obama and have a joint news conference and a private dinner for the two presidential couples.

Alas, this summit will not be a state visit, which could include a dinner with a tent, lots of glitz and maybe the Salahis. Instead, the meeting is styled an "official visit," a much less formal affair. We're that told French presidents, by tradition, do only one state visit to a country during a term in office and Sarkozy had his back in 2007. (News that Sarkozy was headed this way was broken last week by former CBS producer and local restaurateur Carol Joynt on New York Social Diary.)

Sarkozy, invited by Obama for what could also be described as a working visit, comes at a time when European allies are most unhappy with, and feeling snubbed by, the administration. That feeling increased after Obama recently decided to skip the U.S.-European Union summit set for Madrid in May.

Sarkozy, who has been pilloried in the French press for not developing the tight relationship with Obama that the French leader is said to have craved, is also coming back to Washington in mid-April for an Obama-hosted summit with a couple of dozen countries to talk about nuclear security -- the "Loose Nukes" summit.

The North Koreans and Iranians aren't likely to show, but maybe the Iraqis should give the keynote address? After all, they no longer have their arsenal.

Justice delayed

Still no decision on a deputy attorney general. Apparently the powers that be cannot agree on a candidate. A new name has emerged, our colleague Carrie Johnson reports. It's American University law school professor Dan Marcus, a former Justice Department official and White House lawyer who also worked on the 9/11 Commission. But others, especially Acting Deputy AG Gary Grindler, Associate AG Tom Perrelli and Assistant AG for National Security David Kris, are still in the mix.

John Carlin has moved up from deputy chief to be chief of staff and senior counsel to FBI Director Robert S. Mueller. Aaron Zebley, a former FBI agent and now a federal prosecutor on detail to the FBI, will be deputy chief of staff.

Research editor Alice Crites contributed to this column.