Longtime Bush confidant Karl Rove -- who had hoped to use his position of deputy chief of staff to usher in an expansive conservative agenda -- was relieved of his policy portfolio to concentrate on long-term strategy and planning for a November midterm election that looks increasingly bleak for Republicans.
More significantly, they said, unlike Card, who took as his principal responsibility the management of the president, [New White House Chief of Staff Joshua] Bolten probably will operate more in the mold of chiefs of staffs in previous administrations, who saw their role as managing the entire White House and sought to oversee the entire federal government, as well.
Whether the changes will fundamentally alter a troubled administration is another question. 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.
My opinion is that it's simply too late. What's done-the Iraq war, the failures after Katrina, revelations of secretly expanded Presidential authority, etc.-cannot be undone. Even if President Bush could make himself someone he's not, and surround himself by people who are either not yes-men/women or who have their own agendas, there's little hope that Bush could overcome the mistakes that have already made to promote any new agenda. I don't mean to sound over-confident, but in D.C. right now the GOP's focus isn't on getting anything new done, but on simply not getting trounced in November. There just isn't much political capital left to be had.
1 comment:
I don't know who these guys are, but it's the same team of people. I don't see this as any major change, so just going by appearances it seems completely cosmetic and insubstantial. I doubt any real change will happen because of some staff-members getting swapped around.
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