It's not much of a secret any more, but White House chief of staff Rahm Emanuel is leaving Washington to return to his hometown in order to run for mayor of Chicago.
The White House released the following remarks from his departure ceremony in the East Room on Friday morning.
THE PRESIDENT: Good morning, everybody, and welcome to the least suspenseful announcement of all time. (Laughter.) As almost all of you have reported -- (laughter) -- my chief of staff, Rahm Emanuel, has informed me that he will be leaving his post today to explore other opportunities. (Laughter.)
This is a bittersweet day here at the White House. On the one hand, we are all very excited for Rahm as he takes on a new challenge for which he is extraordinarily well qualified. But we're also losing an incomparable leader of our staff and one who we are going to miss very much.
When I first started assembling this administration, I knew we were about to face some of the most difficult years this country has seen in generations. The challenges were big and the margin for error was small -- two wars, an economy on the brinks of collapse, and a set of tough choices about issues that we had put off for decades; choices about health care and energy and education, how to rebuild a middle class that had been struggling for far too long.