Love Quote by Robert Gibbs

Gibbs slips a grin into the usually airless language of Washington careerism. The line about wanting to manage the Atlanta Braves is a deliberately off-script fantasy: a boyhood, nonpartisan dream that instantly humanizes a man whose real job is to be a professional filter. It works because it’s specific. Not “sports,” not “baseball,” but the Braves, a team with regional identity and fan pain baked in. He’s borrowing that cultural shorthand to signal: I’m not just a talking head, I’m a person with loyalties that predate this administration.

The timing matters, too: “they hired somebody this week” turns the wish into a joke with a news peg, a way to appear current without commenting on anything politically combustible. It’s also a subtle flex in humility costume. By conceding he didn’t get the dream job (and couldn’t, because it’s absurd), he drains attention from the more pointed reality: he already holds “one of the best jobs on the planet,” a phrase that lands as gratitude and self-awareness, but also as brand management for the institution he represents.

“Inordinately happy” is the tell. Nobody says that casually. The exaggerated adverb gives him plausible deniability against cynicism: yes, this work is stressful and controversial, but he’s choosing to perform enthusiasm as a kind of civic virtue. The subtext is loyalty - to the role, to the team, to the performance of steadiness - delivered in the safest possible joke.