What’s notable about Obama’s approach – and expands on the approaches taken by Bush and Bill Clinton – is the number of different areas where Obama is seeking to tap a central figure, outside the Cabinet structure, who will carry out his wishes…

Cabinet agencies may only be a few blocks away, but their distance in practice is far more vast. It’s the White House staff that has the president’s ear, that briefs him each day and fields his questions and complaints. It’s here where decisions are most often made, not in the full-dress Cabinet sessions.