In a stay-at-home administration, one member of President Obama’s cabinet is proving to be the toast of the town, Politico reports. Jeh Johnson, the oh-so-serious-on-the-outside secretary of Homeland Security, is fast becoming Washington's No. 1 social butterfly, dining out at posh restaurants. For a guy who's been running a 24/7 war against terror since 2013, Johnson seems to have a lot of time to trip the light fantastic. He can often be seen enjoying regular catch-up sessions with CNN’s Wolf Blitzer and mingling at black-tie soirées.
“There's rarely an invitation he'll turn down,” says an aide to Johnson. “He's unique in that besides genuinely liking new people and new things, he's actually learned that in this town, being interested goes a lot farther than merely making friends—it actually helps get things done.” Like what? “After the president's budget passed completely but without funding for DHS, we were headed for a furlough,” the aide says. “Through sheer force of will — and more than a little bit of one-on-one, face-to-face lobbying for his department to each and every one of the members of Congress who were holding it up, he got it done. It was masterful.”