Cue the breathless reporting:
After the events of the last few days, Mark Penn has asked to give up his role as Chief Strategist of the Clinton Campaign; Mark, and Penn, Schoen and Berland Associates, Inc. will continue to provide polling and advice to the campaign.
Geoff Garin and Howard Wolfson will coordinate the campaign's strategic message team going forward.
Notice that although Penn is giving up his role as "Chief Strategist," he and his firm will continue to provide polling and advice. Or in other words, they are trying to have it both ways here. Silly Clintons... don't they know tricks are for kids?
UPDATE: Much more here.
UPDATE II: Ambinder:
After Thursday's disclosure in the Wall Street Journal that Penn had met with the Columbian government about its trade agreement, Clinton's aides were put in the position of not being able to come up with a defense for Penn; he had done the indefensible. For Clinton, who has tolerated Penn's public errors in judgment because she believed in his strategy, it was the last straw.
"The senator and president were very angry about the meeting. Mark knew that he had made a very big mistake and decided to step aside," a senior campaign official said tonight.Penn will continue to serve as the campaign's chief pollster. But it unlikely he will serve the campaign in any public capacity, such as participating on press conference calls or appearing as a television surrogate.
Geoff Garin, who began polling for the campaign last month, and Howard Wolfson, the campaign's communications director, will take over messaging and strategy duties.
I really would love to see some follow-up on this. He is going to continue to serve as the campaign's chief pollster, but he will no longer serve in any public capacity. So what? The problem with Penn's actions wasn't just that people knew who he was; it was that what he did was wrong. This whole "let's put the wizard back behind the curtain" thing doesn't in any way seem to recognize this.
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