| Politics The White House To-Do List Tornadoes, scandals, and controversy. Is the Obama administration managing its priorities? By John Dickerson
Posted Wednesday, May 22, 2013, at 11:30 AM ET  When White House Chief of Staff Denis McDonough told his colleagues last week to spend no more than 10 percent of their time responding to scandals, he didn't know a tornado would devastate entire stretches of Oklahoma. He knew something like it would happen though. A chief of staff knows that White House plans are always being upset, so he reminds his staff: Don't get too distracted, bigger distractions are always on the horizon. The destruction in Oklahoma brings perspective to the debate about what a president should do and when. For the last several weeks, the president's critics have been trying to get him to react to crises both real and imagined. With the Oklahoma disaster, the answer is obvious about what a president and his staff should do: all hands on deck. But how do you focus a White House when there is no clarifying event? That's what Denis McDonough was trying to do. All presidencies try to minimize the distractions. When George W. Bush came into office, his aides talked about how he would be an "A4 president," meaning that is how deep you would have to page through the newspaper to read about him. He wouldn't feel compelled to participate in every story that news editors decided was worthy of the front page. His administration would stay focused on the important things. Every administration has an abstract hierarchy of priorities it tries to follow. In a world of limited resources, limited ... To continue reading, click here.
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