Few people spend more waking hours with the president, and almost no one is better, senior aides say, at anticipating his next move.
About a month ago, he reinstituted an 8 30 a.m. meeting that he had once eliminated, in the hope of improving morale and better informing aides so they could do their jobs better.
But Bush has shown a willingness to overrule his better-credentialed aides on important matters, including Cheney on the decision to take Iraq to the United Nations.
Since moving with Mr. Obama to the White House as a senior adviser to the president — a title that puts him on a tier with two better-known aides, Valerie Jarrett and David Axelrod — he has remained extraordinarily close to the president.
"One of several reasons funds currently are being withheld is that we have yet to see the results of any investigation, and there is little confidence that the next time would be any better," the aide said.
"The idea is to foster a discussion about how we can do things better," the aide says.
Perhaps it was better, she told aides and friends, to remain in Chicago until the end of the school year, giving her children more time to adjust, rather than coming right at the inauguration.
He also launched a programme called "Prosper", which aims to help sons and daughters of people in poverty programmes to gain access to higher education and jobs.To ensure that his reform message gets a better hearing, his aides have divided up the public into two categories the "red circle" and the "green circle".
Ms. Ramos, 41, a home-health aide better known as the Turtle Lady of Williamsburg, Brooklyn, has 60 of them in her apartment.
However, he said, the add-ons and gadgets produced by firms such as Panasonic and Garmin that people use on their own cars might be a better driver's aide than those made by car manufacturers.
