Abandoning ship? Or simply leading the advance team again

For about ten minutes this morning, the Drudge headline blared. "Another Jumps Ship: Axelrod Out"

Axelrod leaving White House next year to work on campaign

David Axelrod, a top advisor to President Obama and the main architect of his election victory in 2008, will be leaving the White House next year and returning to Chicago to work on the president's re-election campaign, a White House aide said Thursday.

Axelrod has not specified a departure date, but he plans to remain in his current position "well into 2011,'' the aide said.

Axelrod, who calls himself a "Chicagoan on assignment,'' has long made clear he missed his hometown and would return before the end of the four-year term. His wife still lives in the city.

One of Obama's most trusted aides, Axelrod occupies a small office just steps from the Oval Office. On a wall in Axelrod's office hangs a picture of the White House drawn by his daughter. The Chicago skyline is shown in the reflecting pool.

Then just as suddenly, the article fell to the lower columns of the page where the mundane reports usually reside. The bottom line....Axelrod is neither out or jumping ship. He is leaving to become the advance element of the coming second wave of the Obama invasion of 2012.

Perhaps in another year or so the situation will have become so apparent that he will decide that the futility of effort is beyond his capability. Perhaps he will truly leave the administration then. We shall see.