That White House - Roundup

From the White House Briefing:-

Q And one other thing, on the Seder tonight, will the President stay the whole time and how many people are expected to attend?

MR. GIBBS: You know, the truth is I think there's about 17 to 20 people. He'll certainly stay the whole time. This is largely an offshoot of an event -- I use the word "event" somewhat loosely -- last year. I think we were in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, and Eric Lesser organized for some folks this event and we got back to the hotel, it was the basement of a -- of this hotel and asked the President if he'd like to come and the President accepted the invitation. And I think -- I did not go, but somebody told me that at the event that they said, next year let's do this at the White House, and -- (laughter) -- here we are.

So, unclear what predication will be made tonight about where next year's will be, but we'll --

Q Who's leading the Seder? Who's leading it? Who's doing the service?

MR. BURTON: Shared.

MR. GIBBS: I don't know -- what was it?

MR. BURTON: It's a shared leader. Everybody will.

Q Rahm?

MR. GIBBS: The truth is Eric Lesser is the person that has organized most of this both last year and this year.

Well, here it is:



And who was there?

This source reports:

From the President's left is Samantha Tubman (she came to the original one in Harrisburg and now works for Social Secretary Desiree Rogers).... Next to Tubman is Melissa Winter (deputy chief of staff for First Lady Michelle Obama) then First daughters Sasha, and Malia, then the First Lady.

Next to the First Lady is deputy White House counsel Susan Sher, and next to Susan Sher (out of view) are her sons Evan Moore and Michael Cohen, top White House advisor Valerie Jarrett and Obama pal and University of Chicago Medical Center honcho Eric Whitaker (who you can't see).

On the other side of the table, to the President's immediate right, is Susan Sher's husband Neil Cohen. Next to him is Laura Moser (Arun Chaudhary wife), then White House videographer Arun Chaudhary, Vice President Biden aide Herbie Ziskend (Chaudhary and Ziskend were at Harrisburg) Eric Lesser, Lesser's father, Martin Lesser, Deputy Director of Advance Lisa Kohnke, Mrs. Obama's personal aide, Dana Lewis, and Obama personal assistant Reggie Love.