Talk:Assistant to the President

Merger Discussion

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

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I propose that we move Counselor to the President, Senior Advisor to the President of the United States, and White House Chief Strategist into Assistant to the President. This is due to the fact thay are all types of assistants to the presidents with loose distinctions. Emir of Wikipedia (talk) 20:11, 1 February 2017 (UTC)

Seems reasonable to me. Stephen Hui (talk) 16:07, 3 February 2017 (UTC)

Go ahead, if you feel you are reasonably competent on the subject. One has to be truly knowledgeable in this arcane department of U.S. government bureaucracy appellations. The current headline for the article (I mean ″White House Chief Strategist″) is obviously untenable, as it is not the official title apparently, but a journalistic descriptor.Axxxion (talk) 17:22, 3 February 2017 (UTC)

If you merge, you have to get rid of the list of office-holders, or the list will grow to hundreds. "Chief Strategist", "Senior Advisor" and "Senior Counselor" are just job titles -- they're made up by the President and the appointee. "Counselor to the President" and "Assistant to the President" are ranks within the White House hierarchy. Counselor is the top rank (often vacant), there are many Assistants to the President (the Chief of Staff and all top department heads), then comes Deputy Assistants to the President (dozens more), and Special Assistants to the President (dozens more). I'd be in favor of merging "Assistant to the President", "Senior Advisor to the President", and "Chief Strategist". Since all Senior Advisors and Chief Strategists have been Assistants to the President by rank. I think Counselor should remain separate, because it's a specifically higher honor reserved for only a handful of people in White House history. Unsigned

I am open to such a suggestion if you have reliable sources. Emir of Wikipedia (talk) 21:24, 4 February 2017 (UTC)

Creating an alternative job and title description here that is: 1. Contrary to the President's own categorization and titles of these jobs. and 2. Contrary to the job description and titles accepted by the Press, would seem to me to be OR, unless there were substantial documentation to support such an otherwise radical move. Scott P. (talk) 10:00, 5 February 2017 (UTC)

Suggestion, please at least present your supporting documentation here for discussion and hopefully for agreement before making this move. Thanks, Scott P. (talk) 10:03, 5 February 2017 (UTC)

@Scottperry: My very point is that the job and title description differ from the President's own categorization and titles of these jobs with ccepted by the Press. Their is not substantial documentation on either side but for some reason the articles on Wikipedia have ended up being how they are. Discussions have arose at Talk:Steve Bannon#Is the Senior Counselor title still valid?, as well as at discussions 1, 3, and 4 at Talk:Counselor to the President. Emir of Wikipedia (talk) 12:42, 5 February 2017 (UTC)

(Continued below.)

@Emir of Wikipedia: Yes, with all of these new strange titles,Trump seems to almost be attempting to "obfuscate" the lines of authority within his own administration. If there were a cite on this apparent attempt at obfuscation by Trump, then I would think that combining all of these very confusing and seemingly contradictory titles into a single article would be in order. Otherwise and meanwhile, until such a cite emerges, it seems to me that we would do best here to continue pretending that it's business as usual in the Whitehouse. Scott P. (talk) 18:50, 5 February 2017 (UTC)

Since the press and other reliable sources refer to the posts of White House Chief Strategist and White House Chief of Staff, etc we should keep those articles. Instead of merging them all into Assistant to the President. 192.228.209.135 (talk) 22:24, 6 February 2017 (UTC)

The Chief of Staff was not mentioned in this discussion by myself. The reliable sources refer to Bannon as Chief Strategist as indicated in my linked discussion at his page but they previously but no longer refer to him as Senior Counselor. Emir of Wikipedia (talk) 22:34, 6 February 2017 (UTC)

White House is required by law to publish an annual report of staff names, titles, and salary by July 1. Probably would be best to wait and get the official version of all of these titles rather than jumping to conclusion based on news stories. But regardless of title, Bannon is clearly serving in a role that is roughly identical to the role previously served by a Senior Advisor like David Axelrod or Karl Rove. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 73.132.212.103 (talk) 21:51, 7 February 2017 (UTC)

Do you happen to have a link to any of these reports for former presidents? Emir of Wikipedia (talk) 22:39, 7 February 2017 (UTC)

Until yesterday, the Obama era salary data was still available on open.whitehouse.gov. But that's no longer the case. Fortunately it's still available here: http://white-house-salaries.insidegov.com/ The pre-Obama reports are in less friendly formats. Washington Post has earlier reports dating back to 2004. 2004 2005 2006 I've seen Clinton era reports before but having trouble locating them now. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 73.132.212.103 (talk) 08:26, 8 February 2017 (UTC)

Thanks for providing the data. You don't need to worry about getting it from the Clinton era, as we hopefully have enough data to draw a consensus from. A provisional glance suggests that waiting until the annual report may be a good idea, but I have doubts as to how useful it will be if Donald Trump and Jared Kushner are allegedly not taking a salary. Emir of Wikipedia (talk) 12:26, 8 February 2017 (UTC)

In the past, staffers taking no salary are still required to appear in the reports. Their salary just says "0". For instance Todd Park took no salary in 2015 and 2016. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 73.132.212.103 (talk) 01:49, 9 February 2017 (UTC)

I am not sure if that was a legal requirement or a courtesy. Emir of Wikipedia (talk) 11:11, 9 February 2017 (UTC)

There's no need to worry about it not being a legal requirement at this time. We can wait until the list comes out, and if unsalaried staffers are omitted, we can debate what to do about it then. Stephen Hui (talk) 04:16, 10 February 2017 (UTC)

Personally, I would suggest merging them all to "Senior Advisor to the President of the United States" as it is both an official title and a good description of the kinds of positions we are talking about. Orser67 (talk) 17:18, 13 February 2017 (UTC)

No, Chief Strategist should not be merged with Senior Advisor or Counselor to the President. They are not interchangeable positions. For example, the role of Steve Bannon (Chief Strategist) is very distinct to that of Kellyanne Conway's (Counselor). The duties, responsibilities, and influence of these positions is not the same and therefore it would be a mistake to merge. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Rainyseattle (talk • contribs) 00:52, 19 February 2017 (UTC)

Agreed NO merger. I'm already appalled at the fact-free source-free discussion on this page, as if it's Wikipedia's job to "shoe horn" Trump White House posts into Obama's. Any merger coming out of such tendentious discussion will I'm afraid be an egregious breach of WP:ORIGINAL and WP:NPOV guidelines. Better idea is to dedicate a page (or if it exists point to a page where all this stuff is listed and properly categorized and linked. New offices are regularly created by every new president. So one could even create some sort of timeline listing which office and title each new president has created AND which old office the new president has either abolished or simply ignored (left vacant). Loginnigol (talk) 12:42, 15 March 2017 (UTC)

The problem with this approach is that these names mean absolutely nothing. These "offices" exist in name only. There is no "office of the Chief Strategist". When Bannon leaves, the "office" won't be vacant, there will just no longer be a WH staffer with that title. "Senior Strategist" "Senior Advisor" and "Senior Counselor" are all describing the same sort of top level adhoc role outside of the normal organizational chart for someone who has special access to the President. It doesn't matter if Bannon's daily work routine is different from Conway's. Functionally, their role is the same as David Axelrod or Pete Rouse or Karl Rove -- they are top level advisors to the President outside of the org chart. For people using Wikipedia to learn about the White House or the Presidency, it would be much more useful and much more sensible to group these titles under "Senior Advisor to the President" -- which already encompasses a variety of different roles that have been played by Senior Advisors (communications focus, political focus, strategic focus, etc.) — Preceding unsigned comment added by 73.132.212.103 (talk) 09:14, 26 March 2017 (UTC)

No, see United States Government: Policy and Supporting Positions ("Plum Book"), 2016, under "Position Titles".

Senior Advisor and Assistant to the President for Intergovernmental Affairs and Public Engagement: Valerie B. Jarrett

Assistant to the President and Senior Advisor: Brian C. Deese

Assistant to the President and Senior Advisor: Shailagh J. Murray

Obama is saying here that there is no distinction between Deese's and Murray's position, and that there is a clear distinction between their and Jarrett's position. --Dervorguilla (talk) 04:39, 15 June 2017 (UTC)

+Emir of Wikipedia - I'm against the merge. Due to the large amount of information there are in all three articles said above, the Assistant to the President page would just be unpractical for its purpose and it'll force out information about all three positions. In addition, the long list in both Counselor to the President and Senior Advisor to the President of the United States would make the page heavily unorganized. --M.W.B.A.B. (Click here to talk to me!) 23:21, 18 August 2017 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.