Bush Advisers Backing Card As Homeland Security Secretary
By Mike Allen
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, June 18, 2002; Page A17
Prominent advisers to President Bush are urging him to name White House Chief of Staff Andrew H. Card Jr. as secretary of the Department of Homeland Security if Congress approves the administration's plan, several of those advisers said yesterday.
Card was secretary of transportation under President George H. W. Bush and has taken an uncharacteristically prominent role in promoting the department since President Bush announced the idea this month. Card appeared on two network Sunday shows and conducted a large briefing for committee staff directors on Capitol Hill.
Card has signaled he does not plan to remain indefinitely in his current job, which brings him to the White House as early as 4:30 a.m.
White House press secretary Ari Fleischer said after speaking to Card that such a move "is not in the cards." But administration and Capitol Hill sources said Tom Ridge, Bush's director of homeland security, does not want to undergo confirmation hearings and is expected to stay in the White House as Bush's homeland security adviser, a position that would remain under the president's proposal.
So several advisers to Bush are recommending that he choose Card. One prominent adviser said Card "is an expert in instilling a culture in a bureaucracy, and has the president's total trust." Another Bush source said Card "has a velvet-fist management style: He lays down the law but is approachable by everyone."
A possible complication in recruiting a secretary for the new department was revealed yesterday by a senior administration official, who said most of the department might be located outside the Washington area for security reasons.
The official said a new Homeland Security building could be located in Maryland or Virginia, well beyond the Beltway. "We think it's something that at least should be discussed," the official said. "We should be thinking differently about this department."
Among other possibilities to head the new department is Sen. Bill Frist (R-Tenn.), a cardiologist and author of a book on bioterrorism. Lawmakers said they would love to land former New York mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani for the job, but White House officials said his self-promoting style would not fit the Bush culture.
Deputy Secretary of State Richard L. Armitage also is being discussed within the White House as a possible secretary of homeland security, sources said.
Senior White House officials said they did not know Bush's view on who might be the homeland security secretary or adviser. "They don't even talk about this among themselves, partly because they know it wouldn't stay a secret," said a person close to Bush's inner circle.
Card's departure is one of many possible changes at the White House after November's elections. White Houses traditionally have heavy turnover at midterm, and that is the point when the Bush administration will begin formal preparations for the 2004 reelection race.
"It's a natural exit point, and several high-profile aides are expected to take it," a White House official said. "If you stay much into 2003, you're in till January 2005."
Bush's White House has been unusually stable, both because many of his aides are longtime loyalists from Texas and because the Sept. 11 attacks caused at least a few to postpone planned departures. No Cabinet member left in the first 15 months, and the only senior White House staff member to leave was John J. DiIulio Jr., director of the White House Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives. Karen Hughes, Bush's counselor, announced in April that she will resign this summer to return to Texas.
Sources said two longtime friends of Bush's are good possibilities to succeed Card: Commerce Secretary Donald L. Evans, who was chairman of the 2000 presidential campaign, and presidential personnel director Clay Johnson III, who was Bush's transition director and his Texas chief of staff. Rep. Rob Portman (R-Ohio), Bush's closest ally on Capitol Hill, could become commerce secretary or chief of staff, Bush officials said.
Mark McKinnon, a campaign consultant who remains close to the White House, said he expects some shuffling but no wholesale changes after November. He said discussion of specifics is idle speculation. "In this White House, people don't speculate about decisions the president might make," he said. "It's sort of the code."
© 2002 The Washington Post Company
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