Hughes's Return Is a Blow for Rove
White House Briefing - Dan Froomkin
washingtonpost.com
In the three years since Karen Hughes left the White House and her job as counselor to the president, political strategist Karl Rove has increasingly had the run of the place.
The news today that Hughes is coming back means there'll be someone to keep him in check again.
It's not like Hughes and Rove don't agree about a lot of things; they do. They've both been among Bush's top advisers since long before he came to Washington, and they are both ruthlessly effective in pursuing their boss's agenda.
But while Hughes is utterly devoted to Bush, Rove is utterly devoted to building a lasting Republican majority.
And to the extent that there are some areas where those two goals don't entirely overlap, no one in the White House lately has been able to counterbalance Rove like Hughes used to.
The Baker Scoop
Peter Baker broke the story in this morning's Washington Post: "Karen P. Hughes, the longtime adviser to President Bush often described as the most powerful woman ever to work in the White House, plans to return to Washington soon to rejoin the president's team as he sets forth on an ambitious second-term agenda, according to White House officials and outside Republican advisers.
"Seen as a virtual alter ego for Bush who understands how he thinks better than any other adviser, Hughes helped the president build his administration as his counselor in the first term before her surprise resignation in April 2002 to return to Texas with her family. Her forceful presence and physical stature helped cement her position as a key player in any policy decision."
Baker writes that "the decision is not scheduled to be announced until next week. The sources said Hughes will not be a formal member of the White House staff but will take on a specific and particularly important assignment involving international affairs, but they would not identify it."
Does that mean her first job is Iraq? Global democracy? Washington wonks wait with bated breath to find out.
Suskind on Hughes v. Rove
As I wrote in my Feb. 9 column, Rove's recent promotion to deputy chief of staff made him, officially, in charge of pretty much everything at the White House.
That promotion was also in some ways Chief of Staff Andy Card's admission that, without Hughes around, there was no stopping him.
In a seminal 2002 Esquire story, Ron Suskind wrote about how Card, in a rare moment of candor, explained the relative balance of power that existed before Hughes's departure.
" 'The key balance around here,' he says, 'has been between Karen and Karl Rove,' the president's right hand and his left. Rove is much more the ideologue, a darling of the Right, who often swings a sharp sword of partisanship on matters of policy and politics. Hughes, always more pragmatic, mindful of how to draw the most support across a balkanized political terrain, somehow figures how to beat that sword into a plowshare. That is at the core of what has worked so well politically for the president. Both have been with Bush for many years -- Rove first met Bush twenty-nine years ago -- and are ferocious personalities. . . .
" 'That's what I've been doing from the start of this administration. Standing on the middle of the seesaw, with Karen on one side, Karl on the other, trying to keep it in balance. One of them just jumped off.' . . .
Rove himself spoke to Suskind about Hughes: " 'For every ten battles we've had, she's won nine of them. I defer to her completely; she's the best, best ever,' he says. I asked him about whether Hughes's day-to-day absence will mean his more conservative agenda will now have free rein. He paused. 'Well, I certainly hope not,' he said after a moment. 'I certainly hope not,' and then he howled with laughter.
"I tell Card a bit about this. He waves me off. He knows Rove is giddy about the real estate that's now vacant with Hughes's leaving. And as chief of staff, he's clearly girding himself for battles he already sees on the horizon. 'Karl will miss Karen. He may not want to admit it to the level he should, but he'll miss Karen a lot. . . . It's like she's a beauty to Karl's beast.' "
Card told Suskind: "I'll need designees, people trusted by the president that I can elevate for various needs to balance against Karl. . . . They are going to have to really step up, but it won't be easy. Karl is a formidable adversary."
Last March, after Hughes announced she would make a brief return to a more full-time role for the last several months of the presidential campaign, she did several interviews.
NPR's Terry Gross asked Hughes about Suskind's story: "Karen Hughes, do you think -- would you agree that you're returning to serve as a counterweight to Karl Rove and do you think, in your absence, that the Bush administration veered more to the right?
"Ms. HUGHES: No, Terry. You know, Ron's a very creative guy, and I think a lot of people at the White House feel that that was a quite embellished story."
As for Rove, she said: "Now, sure, we have differences. We're both strong-willed personalities. Anyone who's ever been in a room with the two of us knows that we're both tough and outspoken and strong-willed people and we have different perspectives, partly because we have different jobs. My job is the big-picture message. Karl's job -- one of his many jobs -- he has a lot of jobs; he's a great policy thinker as well. But one of his jobs from the political side is to stitch together coalitions to help pass the president's initiatives in Congress or to help re-elect the president or elect the president."
And what about her charge that Suskind's story was embellished? Well, it's worth noting that not long after the story appeared, PBS's Margaret Warner gave Card ample chance to dispute any of his quotes.
"MARGARET WARNER: I mean, is this what you said?
"ANDREW CARD: If I were to go back and forth over every alleged quote in that article, it wouldn't be appropriate.
"The important thing is the White House is working very well. Karen Hughes has been a major contributor to the successes of this president, as has the rest of the White House team, and we work very, very well together. And our job is to serve the president. And he is serving the American people well, because his staff does a good job for him --
"MARGARET WARNER: Somehow I don't feel you're really answering my question. I mean, if --
"ANDREW CARD: It's an irrelevant question because it's not about me; it's about the president and how he performs, and he does a great job. And my job is to make sure the staff does a good for the president, and he has all the tools that he needs to make a decision."
More About Hughes
At the same time that she announced her return to the campaign, Hughes came out with an autobiographical book, "Ten Minutes From Normal."
Hanna Rosin wrote: "The president is described as a 'man of honor,' 'spiritual,' 'wonderful,' 'engaging,' 'humble,' 'in command,' 'possessing a laser-like ability to distill an issue to its core.' He says things in private conversation such as: 'We're sending juveniles the wrong signal by giving them a slap on the wrist when they commit serious crimes.' Hughes says, 'I love the President,' or 'I love the President and Laura Bush,' dozens of times, without blushing."
James Carney wrote in Time in April: "Before she left Washington, it often fell to Hughes to charge 'into the propeller,' as media adviser Mark McKinnon describes the experience of confronting Bush with an unpleasant topic. That is what some Republicans worry has been lacking since Hughes left Bush's side."
Carney wrote: "Within a circle of advisers dominated by conservatives, Hughes ended up the de facto moderate on domestic policy. She was the guardian of Bush's 'compassionate conservative' image and was constantly pushing to have the President focus and speak out on issues like health care and education.
"She pestered him so often about the environment that Bush dubbed her a 'lima green bean.' His other nicknames for her: High Prophet (a play on her maiden name Parfitt) and Hurricane Karen."
In Newsweek's epic post-election post-mortem, Evan Thomas explained Hughes's impact: "Over 6 feet tall, with frosted hair and a strong, flat Texas accent, Hughes had been the chief message maker and enforcer in the 2000 campaign and for the first two years of the Bush presidency. Then she had retreated to Texas to be able to spend more time with her teenage son, who had loathed living in Washington. Hughes had a knack for parroting Bush's tone and voice, for 'channeling' him. She also softened his hard edges. In 2000 Hughes had gently prodded Bush to play the 'compassionate conservative.'
"After she left, the Bush watchers detected a hardening in the Bush line, which they attributed to Rove, who was always reaching out to the party's true believers. Hughes had jockeyed some with Rove for power, but by and large the two forceful figures had produced a consistent message (helped by a boss who insisted on staying 'on message'). Hughes had policed the wayward and zipped loose lips. When she was communications director, talking out of line would earn you 'a size 11 shoe up your [expletive],' according to a former White House official. Journalists were awed by her industrial-strength spin and no-prisoners approach to the chaos of the White House press room. They had nicknamed her Nurse Ratched, after the iron woman who ran the psycho ward in 'One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest.'
"From her home in Austin, Hughes still weighed in on key speeches and decisions, but there was no one with quite her clout running the White House communications operation. . . . Rove was thought by some White House staffers to have a bit of a tin ear, to lean too hard, to reach too far to cater to his prized right-wing base. (Even Bush would crack, 'That idea's so [expletive] bad it sounds like something Rove came up with.')"
Don't Underestimate Her
Early on in my career as White House Briefing columnist, I learned first-hand the perils of underestimating Hughes.
I was doing my very first Live Online and opened the discussion by saying: "Against my self-interest, I should tell you that I'm up against Karen Hughes, who is taking (I'll bet softball) questions over on the White House Web site."
Meanwhile, Hughes was choosing to take -- and easily handling -- questions like: "Where are the WMD?" and "Did you approve of the President's gay-bashing?"
By contrast, Karl Rove has never taken any questions from Web site users, and Card just posts joking answers. |
