It’s been more than three months since Reggie Love publicly announced his departure, and nearly a month and a half since Love officially left the White House after flying nearly 900,000 miles in the company of Barack Obama. We here at Daily Intel began to wonder whether Obama had bonded with the New Reggie yet. Were they tossing around the pigskin and practicing basketball shots late into the evening? So we asked around, only to discover that there IS no New Reggie.
Instead, according to former members of the West Wing staff, rather than hire a new “body man,” Obama’s opted to split the duties between at least two, and probably three existing staff members, at least for the time being. Marvin Nicholson, Obama’s trip director and former body man to John Kerry, has taken over Love’s travel-related duties — handling the rope lines, making sure Obama’s got the right briefings, that sort of thing. Meanwhile, Brian Mosteller, the director of Oval Office Operations, and Anita Decker-Breckenridge, Obama’s personal secretary, have probably taken on the more “personal” tasks that Love used to do. As for what those “personal” tasks are, our sources declined to elaborate, so we’re just going to go ahead and imagine that, these days, it involves a lot of putting this song on repeat over the Oval Office’s speakers while sorting through résumés of would-be body men.
So why hasn’t Obama hired someone new yet? One former staffer speculated that, in all likelihood, Obama is simply waiting for the right person. He can probably get away without a dedicated body man, at least until the campaign really gets going. Part of what makes it hard to move on is that, well, Reggie was so great! Not only did Obama and Love have what the former staffer described as a big-brother, little-brother relationship, and share plenty of extracurricular interests, but Love was known for his exceptional and universal kindness. Obama liked the way that reflected on his administration.
And until that special someone comes along, Reggie’s in town a fair amount: “He still plays basketball with POTUS,” our source assured us. That’s what really counts.
