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Friday, November 21, 2008

Two degrees of separation between Obama and me

image from Flickr
My former sister-in-law, Patti Solis Doyle, has been asked to be Obama's cabinet secretary.

She married my brother Andy (what was she thinking?!) when they were both young students at Northwestern University. They parted amicably when they started to grow up!

My favorite memory of Patti is when she and Andy took me through the barrios of Chicago to find a good place for breakfast. We found one -- the home of some random woman who cooked us up the greasiest, most delicious, homey, affordable Mexican-style breakfast I ever had.

Patti had worked with Hillary for years, and was her campaign manager till she left to become Biden's would-be chief of staff under Obama.

She hasn't said yes to the cabinet post.

Patti's great. We don't keep in touch, but all of us Jacobsons like her and wish her well.

UPDATE: As it happens, the cabinet secretary post went instead to Chris Lu, not Patti. Apparently, Patti had been Rahm Emanuel's choice.

Now ... I am only one-degree of separation from Bush. A good, long-time friend in the industry, Tom Riley -- arguably the father of home automation (founder of Unity Systems) -- was Bush's roomie at Harvard. He is now the ambassador of Morocco.

Looks like he may be headed back to the country.

Obama, if you're listening -- Tom is your kind of guy. You should let him stay put!

(Hey, Tom, drop me a line)

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