Internship Journal #13 White House – Office of the Chief of Staff to the President of the United States

Kneeling – Josh Bolton and Leon Panetta, present and former – Chiefs of Staff

Hello to all...I want to begin by telling you all that my body seems to be falling apart. Whew...I am tired and my body is tired...but I am still plugging away. I think that many of you know that I have a disability. For those of you that do not know much about me, personally, I have arthritis in my lower spine and as such, I am beginning to wear myself out. I am expected to do a lot of walking in my job as an intern and during my commute to any of the locations that we go for seminars. Walking has become very painful and I hope that I can make it through these next five weeks. I certainly do not want to complain, because it is not in my nature to be a whiner, but this is a personal journal and I feel the need to talk about my disability and how it is affecting my everyday life as an intern. Some days are better than others, but I spent this weekend lying around my room and trying to rest for the week ahead. This past week has been an exciting one for me, as we not only visited the White House and had a conversation with, Josh Bolton, the White House Chief of Staff, but we also had a conversation with Norm Mineta, the Secretary of Commerce in the Clinton Administration and the Secretary of Transportation in the Bush Administration. I also attended a rally for the Democrats and what they have accomplished during their first year back as the majority in the Congress.

I would like to begin with Norm Mineta; when we had our seminar with him, he was very straightforward in explaining why he, as a democrat would become the Secretary of Transportation in a republican administration. He told us that he asked many of his friends that are democrats if he should accept the post and they overwhelmingly said that he should. The reasoning behind this was that they did not want to be seen as not wanting to work with the people on the other side of the aisle. Secretary Mineta chose to accept the post and as such, he was the Secretary during the 9/11 terrorist attacks. He spoke to us about that day and the decision he ultimately made to get ALL of the planes in American airspace out of the sky. Some in the administration wanted to have the pilots make their own decision to land. He said, "no," they should all be forced to land, because then they could get an understanding regarding the number of planes that had been taken over by terrorists. At that point, two planes were still in the air and one was headed into D.C. airspace. The only other planes in the air were military fighter aircraft that had been scrambled as a result of the attacks in New York City. All of this took place in a very short amount of time and the planes that were coming into the country were diverted to other countries, mainly Canada. Mr. Mineta discussed the passengers on the plane that crashed in the field in Pennsylvania and said, "the people on this plane were true Patriots." They were speaking to people on the ground and knew that other planes we intentionally being flown into buildings of importance, so they decided as a group to take the plane over themselves. All these passengers understood that this would be suicide, but they cared enough about their country to give their lives to save many other Americans from harm. They had no idea that the plane was expected to fly into the Capitol of the United States, but because of these, "patriots" the capitol and the people inside were spared the fate of the people in the World Trade Center and Pentagon! Norm Mineta is an exceptional human being and I am thankful to have had the opportunity to sit with him and hear this first hand account of that day.

On Halloween, we went to the White House. When we arrived, we went through security and into the west wing, where we waited for Mr. Bolton in an ante room of the Roosevelt room, where the President had just been signing a the internet tax bill that saves us all from paying taxes on our internet connections. Mr. Panetta arrived while we were in the ante room and asked us what we had all been doing in our offices. We then all went into the office of the Chief of Staff to have a conversation with Mr. Bolton. The office has a large conference table, a desk, and a sofa and some chairs and seems a comfortable space to hold meetings and the such. Mr. Bolton has a countdown clock on his desk, that has the amount of time the President has left in office. I found this to be very interesting. Essentially, Mr. Bolton is counting down the days, until he is out of a job. He answered a couple of our questions, but deferred to Mr. Panetta to answer several times, saying that he could never be as skilled a COS as Mr. Panetta. I found this frustrating, because we had already heard these answers from Mr. Panetta and I wanted to hear this from the current COS. A specific question was asked about, what the most important issue on the agenda of this administration is for the time they have left in office. Mr. Bolton skillfully answered this question, saying that it was, "protecting the United States." He never said the words, Iraq or war or terrorism. He towed to party line and that was expected. He also explained the schedule for the day and told us that the President asked that the schedule be changed, so he could talk with his speech writers about a speech he was to give the next day. He said that the speech, "was not on topic, enough." The speech was given the following day and I found it to be very derogatory towards the democratic party. The President said that the democrats were behaving like Nazi sympathizers! Mr. Bolton concluded by telling us that he had White House M&M's for us all, because it was Halloween. The box of M&M's has the presidential seal and George Bush's signature. This is a box of M&M's that will never be eaten by me! I will bring them home and use them for show and tell for the classes that I will visit upon my return.

Now on to other fun stuff...I attended something called, "The Zombie Lurch" on the Saturday before Halloween and had a great time. The lurch consisted of people dressed as Zombies walking from the Washington Monument through the streets of D.C. and then to the metro and to different clubs around town. Diana went as skull face, Brandon went as a pimp, Kari went as a cat, and I went as a pregnant nun with a peace sign necklace instead of a rosary! We weren't zombies, but the deal was you could dress anyway you wanted, so we did. People around D.C. were laughing and scared and it was just some good clean fun.

On Sunday of last week, my friend Amanda, from Chico State, (now Rutgers) came to visit and we had a wonderful time together. We visited the Smithsonian Native American Museum where we saw actual hand made native American dresses and other clothing. These items were absolutely beautiful and you could see the difference in the types of clothing depending on the lifestyle of the specific tribe. We then went into the Air and Space museum where we saw actual items from the space program. From Sputnik to the present missions on the space shuttle to the space station. The American History museum is closed for renovations at this time, but the cool stuff is in a room of the air and space museum. In this room was, George Washington's military uniform, he was much taller than I thought. It also held the little writing lap desk that Thomas Jefferson wrote the, Declaration of Independence. This part of the museum also held Mr. Rogers sweater, Archie Bunkers chair, an original Barbie, and C3PO and R2D2 from the original Return of the Jedi movie. Also included was Dorothy's ruby red slippers and a script from the Wizard of Oz. I was in heaven looking at these items that are so important to the history of America. Another thing that was interesting was a collection of different types of hats (I had a hat collection as a child) and the compass that was used by Lewis and Clark on their trip to the Pacific Ocean. By this time, Amanda and I were both limping around, she hurt herself while moving to New Jersey and is still not fully recovered...so we sat for a little while, ate and then we headed over to the National Archives. We saw the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution and were elated to see these two remarkable documents together. Just a bit of useless information for you all, but in the gift shop of the National Archives, they sell the movie, "National Treasure" with Nicholas Cage. I bought a pair of Democratic Donkey earrings and have worn them every day since, including to my trip to the White House!!

The Democratic rally was on C-Span and if you would like to see it, I am certain that you can watch it online, if you go to C-Span.com. I found it to be fun and interesting. Steny Hoyer, the majority leader spoke first and introduced Nancy Pelosi the Speaker of the House. She spoke next and mentioned the areas in which the Democrats have worked to help Americans. Several members asked a constituent to come and speak to the group and tell how the democrats have helped them in their everyday lives. The most inspiring came from a grandmother that was ashamed the administration has left such a large debt for her grandson, Max, to pay. At this point, the national debt is so high that every living American, today has more than $29,000.00 worth of debt. She said, "adults should live within their means and she is proud that this Congress has brought back the Pay-Go rules." Pay-Go is actually, pay as you go and was established during the Clinton Administration, it means that if Congress wants to fund a project, they have to find the money, in the budget, to fund the program. This rule can be somewhat attributed to Leon Panetta, who is the only person in recent history to have actually balanced the budget. Another reason I am very proud to be associated with him and his ideals!

I will close for now, as this is a very long post, but I wanted you all to know how exciting and exhausting this week has been for me!!

Until next time,

Eliza