Affection for Rouse on full display at White House

Pete Rouse stole the show at Thursday’s announcement that William Daley will be President Obama’s new chief of staff.

Rouse turned emotional after a long, standing ovation from
White House staff that prompted Obama to joke that “people like Pete.”

The shy and media-averse Rouse, who filled in as chief of staff
in the wake of Rahm Emanuel’s departure, is revered in the West Wing, and that
affection was on full display at the East Room ceremony for Daley.

The longtime Senate aide appeared to get emotional as Obama
lauded his tenure as top aide, and the White House staff responded with a
standing ovation.

“I cannot imagine life here without Pete, and I told him so,”
Obama said.

Obama even did am impression of Rouse’s “gruff voice,”
saying that when he asked Rouse to follow him to the White House from the
Senate, Rouse said his “strong inclination was to leave government.”

Obama noted that when Emanuel left last year to run for
mayor of Chicago, he asked “one of my most trusted aides [Rouse] to step into
the breach and help us during a very difficult time.”

In the few months that followed, Obama and the Democratic
Party responded to heavy losses in the midterm elections by passing a
smorgasbord of Obama’s wish-list legislation during the lame-duck session.

Before Emanuel left, while still serving as a senior adviser
to Obama, Rouse was tasked with creating a report that would lay out the White
House infrastructure for the next two years.

While Rouse was considered a finalist for the gig on a more
permanent basis, Obama said it was a position the longtime adviser did not
want. Obama said he was able to coerce Rouse to serve “one more tour of duty as
my counselor for the next two years.”