There have been so many embarrassments surrounding the White House lately, and as every in DC knows, it's an election year. Obviously, (some of) the Dems are trying to point out every Republican mistake over the past couple of years, and (some of) the Republicans are trying to distant themselves from the flatlining White House.
White House officials dismiss all the recent chatter but won't say whether the president is contemplating any staff reconfiguration. There seem to be a lot of calls for it. Republican Sen. Norm Coleman has said he's concerned the president's aides are not serving him well. CBS News reported that Howard Baker, chief of staff to Ronald Reagan and ambassador to Japan for this administration, had placed a call to the White House on Tuesday and urged the hiring of former Sen. Fred Thompson of Tennessee to inject some new blood. Administration insiders have been leaking to the New York Times and Washington Post about the need for a shake-up. If the White House doesn't signal that it has heard these complaints, soon someone is going to rent an ad on the side of a blimp.
I doubt that we really need to take out an ad. I'm sure people in the White House can't be that ignorant because surely, they have to see the falling approval ratings every day.
So who will be the lucky one to be handed the pink slip?
Realistically, a shake-up only means one person: Karl Rove. Andy Card may need to go, but he's not the power in the White House and Bush orbit that Rove is. Rove is the chief political tactician, enforcer, and policy guru. If he doesn't go, nothing has been shaken up. If he does go, anyone replacing him would have a hard time filling his shoes, especially so fast. Also, to be effective, Rove's successor is going to need a very strong personality to tell the president and Cheney when they're wrong and have it stick. (A staffer brought in to tell them when they're right isn't needed; there are enough of those.) George Bush likes routine, and it seems impossible that he'd be able to trust this new super-player enough to get anything done in the small amount of time he has left to accomplish anything.
Now granted, I will really be shocked if Rove gets the boot (even if he helped destroy Papa Bush's presidency, too), but it is possible. Go to a political forum, and you'll see the most hardcore Republicans admitting that they think Rove is slimy and too much of a cancer for Bush to keep. Some have said they would have a little more faith in the administration again if Rove was canned.
Something has to happen. As mentioned before, with it being an election year for Congress, they need someone to blame for the mess the party is in.
White House advisers also know they will bear the political cost of the staff changes. The reason members of Congress want a staff change is that it will reinforce the idea that the White House is to blame for the current GOP woes. GOP presidential candidates and the Washington insiders who advise them also want an admission that something went terribly wrong inside Bushland--but only inside Bushland, not among Republicans as a group.
Tags: [Congressional election year], [Congress], [election year], [midterm election], [Karl Rove], [Republican party], [GOP], [White House], [Bush Administration], [pink slip for Rove?], [lame duck], [Bush is a lame duck], [GOP is looking for someone to blame]
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