“The chief of staff has got to say to the president of the United States, ‘You cannot do that,’ ” says McDonough’s old critic, Panetta. “Because you’re going to put yourself in a hole and it’s going to be embarrassing to you and could undermine the very plan that you’re trying to put in place. The role of the chief of staff has to be the flashing red light when you anticipate that the president may be doing the wrong thing, or that he’s not being well served. And you can’t just kind of turn your head and cross your fingers and hope that everything’s going to be okay.”
