New chief of staff Pete Rouse knows everyone

POLITICO:  Between Barack Obama’s election and inauguration, Pete Rouse was known as the transition’s “keeper of the list”: He knew who was supposed to get jobs, who was owed favors, who was dead to the boss.

Rouse, 64, is invisible to most of Washington, figuratively and literally: He rarely talks to reporters, and never on the record. In most White House photographs, his back is to the camera.

Suddenly, he is in the spotlight as the interim successor to Rahm Emanuel as White House chief of staff. Rouse will hold the job for the foreseeable future – certainly through the Nov. 2 elections, and perhaps until the end of the year — while the president decides on a permanent replacement. ..  (more)