[Mb-civic] Rove's Loss - Dan Froomkin - washingtonpost.com Blog

[William Swiggard]

Rove's Loss

By Dan Froomkin
Special to washingtonpost.com
Thursday, April 20, 2006; 2:03 PM

When President Bush gave longtime political guru and senior adviser Karl 
Rove the additional title of deputy chief of staff for policy a little 
over a year ago, it was the ultimate expression of Bush's failure to 
make a distinction between politics and policy.

But there is a difference. Politics is about elections; policy is about 
governing. In politics, it's all about winning; in governing, it's about 
making things better.

By putting Rove so overtly in charge of policy, Bush implicitly 
authorized him to use the power of the White House primarily to achieve 
his lifelong dream: A lasting Republican majority. Traditionally, 
presidential candidates have won election in order to govern; in this 
case, Bush and Rove won in order to win some more.

And while misunderestimating Rove's campaign skills has been a fatal 
mistake for Bush's opponents, overestimating his ability to govern may 
have been a serious mistake for Bush.

In retrospect, the perils of merging politics and policy seem clear. 
Rove-directed policies have contributed to a deeply unpopular 
presidency, increasingly accused of being not only divisive but incompetent.

Giving Rove a leading role in the Hurricane Katrina recovery efforts was 
perhaps the greatest example. What did rebuilding New Orleans have to do 
with creating a permanent Republican majority? Not much. In fact, 
arguably quite the opposite.

Yesterday, with the public growing more and more disillusioned with his 
presidency, the press increasingly restive and congressional elections 
around the bend, Bush let new chief of staff Joshua Bolten take Rove's 
policy title away. Rove's day-to-day policy obligations will shift to 
Joel Kaplan, who previously served as Bolten's top lieutenant in the 
White House's budget office. Rove may even get physically moved back 
upstairs to the West Wing's second floor, losing his office just down 
the hall from the Oval. (See my White House floor plan 
<http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/custom/2005/06/06/cu2005060601310.html>.)

But what does it really mean? It's not entirely clear. There are no 
signs that Rove's influence on Bush and the White House will wane 
significantly. The key will be watching if any new policies emerge or 
old policies are abandoned. And so far, there are no indications of that.

The president yesterday also pushed press secretary Scott McClellan 
overboard, evidently in an attempt to reassure the public about his 
credibility and his leadership.

And yet, while McClellan's removal will have a huge impact on the 
day-to-day existence of the White House press corps, it arguably has no 
greater significance -- until or unless the new press secretary gets 
different marching orders.

The early line on who might succeed McClellan -- that the White House is 
considering two people affiliated with Fox News as his replacement -- 
says more about the White House's close relationship with Fox than it 
does about any intention to be more forthcoming.

And by contrast, the one Bush personnel move that would actually make a 
statement -- the firing of Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld -- is 
evidently off the table.

Survival Mode

Dan Balz 
<http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/04/19/AR2006041902517.html> 
writes in The Washington Post: "In a White House known for both defiance 
and optimism, yesterday's senior staff changes represent a frank 
acknowledgment of the trouble in which President Bush now finds himself. 
They are also a signal of how starkly Bush's second-term ambitions have 
shifted after a year of persistent problems at home and abroad."

Balz writes, "One of Bolten's biggest challenges, administration allies 
say, will be to find ways to open up the Oval Office to new ideas and to 
the opinions of people who are not longtime Bush confidants.

"On that score, many people who know the administration best are 
privately dubious. Presidents, more than chiefs of staff, determine how 
White Houses operate, they said, noting that Bush has shown that he 
prefers a tight circle of advisers and does not welcome the advice of 
outsiders. As Bush put it on Monday, in asserting that he would not fire 
Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld, 'I'm the decider, and I decide 
what's best.' "

Rove Speaks

Elisabeth Bumiller 
<http://www.nytimes.com/2006/04/20/washington/20bush.html?hp&ex=1145505600&en=56c07fd912ff309e&ei=5094&partner=homepage> 
writes in the New York Times: "Mr. Rove has been at Mr. Bush's side 
since Mr. Bush entered politics, and for years his influence has been 
unquestioned. The decision to take away his daily control over the White 
House's policy-making apparatus is the first time his role has shrunk, 
and it is a stark reversal from the heady aftermath of Mr. Bush's 2004 
re-election victory, when Mr. Rove's portfolio was expanded to give him 
formal control over policy.

"In a telephone interview Wednesday night, Mr. Rove brushed aside 
suggestions that the change was a diminishment of his role.

" 'It is something different,' he said.

" 'I've got a new boss,' he continued, a boss 'who says I want you to do 
more of this and less of that.' "

But Bumiller writes: "The change in Mr. Rove's responsibilities was at a 
minimum a signal that the White House was serious about reorganizing 
itself to get Mr. Bush's presidency back on track, and was widely 
interpreted in Washington as a step down in stature for Mr. Rove and an 
acknowledgment of policy failures in the last year."

Shuffling the Same Deck

Peter Baker and Jim VandeHei 
<http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/04/19/AR2006041900897.html?nav=hcmodule> 
write in The Washington Post: "The reshuffling, the most significant of 
Bush's second term, got underway when the president appointed Bolten to 
replace Andrew H. Card Jr. as his chief aide. Bolten, who took over 
Friday afternoon, has moved quickly to restructure the West Wing. On 
Monday, he invited aides already thinking of leaving to submit 
resignations. On Tuesday, he installed U.S. Trade Representative Rob 
Portman to take over his job as director of the Office of Management and 
Budget. . . .

"A senior White House official said a lot of staff members remain 
uncertain. Bolten's call for resignations, the official said, has a lot 
of aides who had not been contemplating departing now planning to spend 
this weekend considering it. Bolten has said he will keep Card's 
schedule and structure until the middle of next week, and then put his 
own in place. . . .

"At the same time, the changes made public so far mainly have moved 
around figures who have been inside the Bush orbit for years, and White 
House officials made clear yesterday that no major shifts in policy are 
envisioned. With midterm congressional elections looming, strategists 
said the main goal was to make public gestures that would restore faith 
in Bush's ability to lead."

Just a Way to Change the Subject?

Mike Allen 
<http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,1185015,00.html> writes 
for Time: "The sudden announcement by Scott McClellan that he is 
resigning as White House Press Secretary reflected the conclusion by 
President Bush's inner circle that visible, dramatic change -- something 
this President has long resisted -- is crucial to relaunching the second 
term and making productive use of his last two and a half years in office."

Tom Hamburger, Richard Simon, and Ronald Brownstein 
<http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-resign20apr20,0,662626.story?coll=la-home-headlines> 
write in the Los Angeles Times: "A former White House official who had 
talked recently with Bolten said Wednesday's moves resulted from 
Bolten's view that he needed to address three serious problems facing 
Bush: deteriorating press coverage, souring relations with Congress, and 
increasing tensions between the White House and GOP candidates. . . .

"Officially, Wednesday's announcement reduces the influence of the man 
many historians believe to be one of the most powerful White House aides 
in history. . . .

"But a Republican strategist familiar with White House thinking said the 
shift in Rove's job did not represent a diminution in his standing. . . .

"People familiar with White House operations said Rove still would be 
the key voice on determining the president's travel schedule and 
message, and they predicted that Rove personally would help raise funds 
for congressional candidates."

Much Ado About Little

Matt Cooper 
<http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,1184975,00.html> writes 
for Time: "Presidents have long turned to the staff shakeup or cabinet 
shuffle as a way of digging out of trouble. . . .

"But the changes by themselves are not a panacea. The sources of Bush's 
woes -- mostly fueled by Iraq but also including high oil prices and 
stymied policies like the partial privatization of Social Security -- 
aren't likely to change until the policies themselves either change or 
yield better results. The staff turnovers that lead to new policies tend 
to work best. Those that just change names don't."

Marc Sandalow 
<http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2006/04/20/MNGCCIC4621.DTL> 
writes in the San Francisco Chronicle: "There is a new chief of staff 
and a new budget director, and soon a new press secretary at the White 
House. Yet so far there is no sign of a new direction. . . .

"Most observers agree that it is not the expression or even the 
execution of policy that has given Bush trouble. It is the policies 
themselves.

"Bush's fortunes seem intrinsically tied to the war in Iraq, which he 
acknowledges is the central focus of his presidency. And for all the 
personnel changes over the past several weeks, Bush has made it plain 
that when it comes to Iraq, or other matters of national or economic 
security, he has no inclination to change course."

Ron Hutcheson and William Douglas 
<http://www.realcities.com/mld/krwashington/news/nation/14380399.htm> 
write for Knight Ridder Newspapers: "Like the previous personnel shifts, 
the latest moves are largely cosmetic and aren't likely to result in any 
dramatic policy changes. . . .

"The reshuffling is part of an effort by newly installed White House 
chief of staff Joshua Bolten to re-energize the Bush administration and 
boost confidence in the president's leadership. But the changes to date 
have been incremental, typically replacing one insider with another."

Howard Fineman <http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/12388817/site/newsweek/> 
writes for Newsweek: "Bolten can rearrange the deck chairs all he wants 
to on domestic and economic policy. But the Axis of Believers -- 
Cheney-Rummy-Rove-Condi -- remains. The more the media and its band of 
Republican allies complain, the more dug in Bush will become. He's as 
stubborn as Slim Pickens in 'Dr. Strangelove:' He'd rather ride Rummy to 
Armageddon than seem to concede that Iraq was a botched project."

Minimal Change for Rove

John D. McKinnon 
<http://online.wsj.com/article/SB114545409132029922.html?mod=politics_first_element_hs> 
writes in the Wall Street Journal (subscription required): "The shift of 
Mr. Rove out of his second-term role as deputy chief of staff for policy 
could help address a separate problem: concern that White House policies 
too often are perceived as partisan and divisive. . . .

"But Republican allies said privately that Mr. Rove's real function 
never changed that much and isn't likely to now. They suggested that he 
took the deputy chief of staff title at the beginning of the second term 
only to prevent former chief of staff Andrew Card from filling the job 
with one of his own loyalists, after he rejected giving the job to Mr. 
Rove's choice, Jay Lefkowitz."

Ron Fournier 
<http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060420/ap_on_go_pr_wh/rove_reined_in_7> 
writes for the Associated Press that "a growing number of Republicans, 
including Rove's allies inside the White House, had concluded that the 
strategist had stretched himself too thin. There was talk that Rove had 
taken his eye off the ball while Democrats crept closer to gaining 
control of Congress in the fall. . . .

"Technically, it is a demotion. But in terms of real power and 
influence, Rove remains virtually unmatched at the White House."

McClellan's Departure

Julie Hirschfeld Davis 
<http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/nationworld/bal-te.shakeup20apr20,0,5850249.story?coll=bal-nationworld-headlines> 
writes in the Baltimore Sun: "McClellan, the public face of the 
president's struggle to answer questions about his leadership, 
especially on the war in Iraq, will leave the White House in a few 
weeks. . . .

"The resignation came at a time of deep frustration, voiced privately by 
some party strategists, over the administration's apparent inability to 
counter Bush's critics and burnish his image. It capped a difficult 
period for McClellan, whose credibility has been tarnished by his 
handling of questions about prewar intelligence and the CIA leak 
investigation."

Davis writes that the Bush "team had, until recently, excelled at 
promoting a carefully honed message with a united voice. That often 
forced McClellan to go before reporters armed with talking points that 
bore little relation to reporters' questions and sometimes to provide 
answers that turned out to be inaccurate."

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/blog/2006/04/20/BL2006042001040.html?nav=hcmodule
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