Robert Gibbs leaving the White House

By Rachel Weiner

White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs is leaving the White House, Democrats who have spoken with him say. Gibbs started informing his White House colleagues Wednesday.

The Post reported on Tuesday that Gibbs was considering leaving the administration, perhaps to set up his own consulting shop and play a leading role in the 2012 campaign.

Gibbs has held his post since President Obama's inauguration; before that, he was the campaign communications director. In a profile of the press secretary last April, Jason Horowitz wrote that the press secretary seemed eager to become more of a strategist.

Gibbs is too discreet to say which job he prefers, but it's not hard to figure out. Listen to the press secretary talk about the media as a predictable, hyperventilating rabble obsessed with access and covering "everything as make or break," or observe his frustration percolating in the briefing room. Then ask him whether he has improved as a big-picture strategist, and the administration's leading purveyor of evasive, circuitous sentences suddenly speaks to the point.

Gibbs' relationship with the press has been contentious at times. He's notoriously difficult to get on the phone, and reporters complain that he avoids questions. Gibbs has also sparred with liberal activists, blowing up over criticism from the "professional left."