Valerie Jarrett: a vacuous cipher, or the president's greatest fan?

Andrew Stiles writes at National Review:

The White House reportedly went to great lengths last month to out a senior official — Jofi Joseph of the National Security Council — who had been operating an anonymous Twitter account, @natsecwonk, which was highly critical of the administration. Among Joseph’s offending tweets: “I’m a fan of Obama, but his continuing reliance and dependence upon a vacuous cipher like Valerie Jarrett concerns me.” Joseph was fired immediately after his identity was discovered in a sting operation coordinated by the White House and State Department.

Jodi Kantor’s The Obamas revealed a September 2010 clash between Jarrett and former White House press secretary Robert Gibbs. When Jarrett informed him that Michelle Obama was not pleased with his work, Gibbs went ballistic, telling Jarrett she didn’t “know what the f*** you’re talking about,” and that if Mrs. Obama did not like it, “f*** her too.” Gibbs told Kantor that after the episode, he no long took Jarrett seriously “as an adviser to the president.” He left the White House six months later.

Next to the president himself, Obama has no greater fan; and judging from his latest poll numbers, he’s going to need all the flattering encouragement he can get.