YOU CAN CHECK OUT ANY TIME YOU LIKE, BUT YOU CAN NEVER LEAVE: At Commentary, Seth Mandel writes:

The New York Times tries admirably to parrot the administration line, calling Daley’s departure a “distracting shake-up in a White House that has prided itself on a lack of internal drama, with a tightly knit circle of loyal senior advisers playing a steadying role.” But the paper is forced to give away the game later on in the story, revealing the Obama White House for what it is: the Hotel California of presidential administrations:

While the president said he asked Mr. Daley to reconsider his decision, he did not apply the kind of pressure he brought to bear on Treasury Secretary Timothy F. Geithner, who has for several months been eager to return to New York.

The Times is right; Geithner has been begging to leave. And far from being chock full of “loyal senior advisers,” the White House is made up of people trying desperately to get out before their term is up (Daley, Geithner) and comically disastrous hires to which Obama has shown a generous amount of loyalty (Eric Holder, former press secretary Bob Gibbs).

Of course, for some reason, we haven’t seen the rash of newspaper stories on how Obama prizes loyalty over talent and competence, the way we did with George W. Bush. Perhaps the Times will be getting around to that any day now.

“You can’t get to the White House without stepping through the looking glass,” Jim Treacher writes on the Obama-in-Wonderland PR fiasco only now coming to the surface, but for some, escaping from the rabbit hole is even more difficult.