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From today's NYT:
uly 2, 2001
Crew of Listing Bush Ship Draws Republican
Scowls
By RICHARD L. BERKE and FRANK BRUNI
ASHINGTON, June 29 — Many
prominent Republicans who once
marveled at the Bush administration's agility
say the president's lieutenants are increasingly
stumbling in ways that are not merely
embarrassing but also perilous to Mr. Bush's
political standing.
Sounding notes of disappointment and
concern, these Republicans, who number
more than a dozen and include strategists
usually sympathetic to the administration as
well as several lawmakers, say that the White
House political compass has often seemed
askew over the last three months.
They point to the arguably clumsy way the
administration handled the global warming
issue and the initial rollout of its energy plan,
the defection of Senator James M. Jeffords of
Vermont from the Republican Party and the
meeting of a senior administration official with
executives from a company in which he
owned more than $100,000 worth of stock.
And they note that these and other episodes
have at times made the administration seem
alternately arrogant, sloppy, unethical and out
of touch.
White House officials assert that any mistakes
are eclipsed by accomplishments that defied
formidable obstacles, the low expectations for
Mr. Bush and the tightness of the 2000
election. The president quickly passed his
sweeping tax cut and is on the verge of
achieving some of his objectives for
education.
But these officials also acknowledge the
recently critical reviews of the administration
in the press as well as Mr. Bush's slip in
popularity in some polls.
"We're not unconcerned," said Mary Matalin,
Vice President Dick Cheney's chief political
aide. "We're not so inflexible or blind that
we're like Stepford wives and husbands
marching like lemmings over a cliff. What
we're doing now is recalibrating."
Indeed, officials are taking steps to address
concerns large and small. At a meeting last
week with top aides to Republican House members from Florida, administration
officials acknowledged the complaints of some members that they were not properly
included on Mr. Bush's recent trip to the Everglades. The House aides were asked
to be patient with the relatively new White House staff and told that steps were
being taken to better coordinate Mr. Bush's out- of-town trips.
The White House is also spearheading a program to work closely with the 40 or so
most vulnerable House incumbents to help them raise money and hone their
messages before the midterm elections. On a policy level, White House officials
have in recent days begun convening a daily meeting to plot strategy to sell their
energy plan.
And in the wake of Mr. Jeffords's defection, White House officials have embarked
on a drive to work more closely with the centrist Republicans most likely to break
party ranks.
"Clearly, the moderates on the Republican side needed more outreach, and we've
tried to engage that," said Nicholas E. Calio, the chief White House legislative
liaison.
In recent weeks, Mr. Calio has had breakfast three times with Senator Olympia J.
Snowe, Republican of Maine, who also received phone calls early this week from
President Bush and from his chief of staff, Andrew H. Card Jr. In addition, Ms.
Snowe had dinner on Monday night with Karl Rove, Mr. Bush's chief political aide,
in a group that also included Senators Arlen Specter, Republican of Pennsylvania,
and Susan Collins, Republican of Maine.
"They have learned that there has to be more contact and more listening," Mr.
Specter said.
Republicans' concerns about the administration's nimbleness touch on everything
from the handling of crucial policy like stem-cell research and the planned halting of
bombing runs on the Puerto Rican island of Vieques to matters of practical politics,
like the sometimes awkward staging of Mr. Bush's appearances and the limited
degree to which the president is helping Republican Congressional candidates raise
money.
Republicans also complained that on his first presidential trip to California, Mr. Bush
stood idly as Gov. Gray Davis, a Democrat, seized the upper hand in talking about
the state's energy woes.
Some Republicans attribute any perceived dimming of the new administration's glow
to an inescapable period of adjustment and an inevitable learning curve.
"I think the transition from campaigning to governing is never easy and sometimes
awkward," said Kenneth M. Duberstein, who was chief of staff to President Ronald
Reagan. "The initial months of every White House are almost like the early days of a
baby, and everyone's saying, `Isn't he cute? Isn't he wonderful?'
"And then, before long, the baby grows up to be a gawky adolescent, and they say,
`Boy, he's not well coordinated. God, he's a bit awkward!' And I think that's the
stage the Bush administration is going through right now. They will quickly move
from adolescent to grown-up and be fully matured and at the top of their game."
Many Republicans are less charitable, and they express fear that Mr. Bush's political
troubles have already spilled over to the party itself, potentially endangering
candidates in next year's midterm elections.
They are pointing fingers mostly at Mr. Rove, who is generally praised as the
mastermind of Mr. Bush's political rise. Republicans close to the administration say
that he is such a transparently influential figure — and thus such a reliable magnet for
controversy — that he needs to monitor his actions more carefully and rein in his
broad portfolio.
These Republicans say that Mr. Rove's most obvious lapse of judgment and
vigilance was a decision to meet three months ago with executives of Intel, a
company in which he owned stock. Although he said he had not weighed in on the
federal approval the executives were seeking for a corporate merger, he drew
intense criticism for creating at least an appearance of impropriety.
"I'm sure if Karl had to do it again he'd do it differently," said Representative
Thomas M. Davis III of Virginia, who is chairman of the National Republican
Congressional Committee. "It ought to be a wake- up call that the Washington rules
are much different than what you have anywhere else. Karl's got to understand that
he's a target. If people can't get to Bush they're going to get to Karl. These are
lessons you learn the hard way."
Mr. Rove acknowledged shortcomings. "Are
there things that I think I could have done a
better job on? You betcha," he said. "I'm not
going to get into a recitation of my many and
manifold sins."
Responding to Mr. Davis's comments about
him, Mr. Rove said: "I appreciate his insights.
He's a good friend and gives me good
advice."
A frequent complaint among Republicans is
that Mr. Rove has overextended himself, and
insufficiently concealed his tracks, so that many decisions coming from the White
House have an overly political taint. That taint is especially problematic because of
the way Mr. Bush campaigned, with a constant mantra that his White House would
be governed by principles in a way that President Bill Clinton's, in his view, was not.
Although some senior administration officials deny it, Mr. Rove appears to be front
and center in the process by which the White House will decide whether to allow
federal financing of research on stem cells from human embryos. A decision to
permit the research would outrage many Catholics and religious conservatives,
constituencies on which Mr. Rove keeps a watchful eye.
Mr. Rove was also a player at recent meetings about the future of Navy bombing
tests in Vieques, and Senator James M. Inhofe, an Oklahoma Republican, accused
him of single-handedly making the decision to halt the bombing by 2003 in order to
win the favor of Hispanic voters.
Mr. Inhofe, who has called the island training vital to the military, said that he had
been active on the Vieques matter for years but that Mr. Rove had cut him out of
the deliberations. He said he had insisted that Mr. Rove be pulled out of a meeting
on the issue and that they had had a telephone conversation that was "a little
contentious."
"He wasn't responsive — he didn't hear what I had to say," Mr. Inhofe said. "It was
Karl Rove who made the decision. It was politically motivated."
Mr. Rove, told of Mr. Inhofe's comments, denied any political motivations, saying,
"I respectfully disagree with the senator."
Despite all the heat Mr. Rove has drawn, Republicans close to the administration
say that his standing in the White House is undiminished. "He has lost no luster with
the boss," said Representative Rob Portman, an Ohio Republican.
In any case, many Republicans' frustrations — and complaints — extend beyond
and above Mr. Rove, to the president himself. Republican lawmakers say that Mr.
Bush is at times not as focused on elections as they would like.
"Bush is not a fund-raiser like Clinton was," Mr. Davis said, adding that the
president's advisers "made it very clear his job wasn't the fund- raiser in chief. But
they are making it up in other ways."
White House officials seem to be mounting an aggressive campaign to mend any
tattered relations in the Senate, where Mr. Jeffords's defection threw the balance of
power to Democrats, raised questions about Mr. Calio's legislative operation and
unearthed complaints from some Senate aides that Mr. Calio simply told lawmakers
what the White House wanted rather than creating a dialogue.
Mr. Calio said: "Is it our job to present the president's position on Capitol Hill? Yes,
and, frankly, we do it unabashedly. What people don't realize is that we come back
to the White House and present their position — unadorned — too."
Even so, many Republicans see in the White House signs of the arrogance of newly
acquired power, a state of mind to which these Republicans attribute the lion's share
of administration mistakes.
These Republicans, for example, questioned how Ms. Matalin could not have
foreseen the negative way Mr. Cheney's comment about conservation as a "personal
virtue" might be interpreted and why she allowed him to hold a reception for big
Republican donors at the vice president's residence. The press predictably flashed
back to the Clinton administration and the Lincoln Bedroom. Ms. Matalin said she
did not have complete control over that event but that, in regard to both criticisms,
"It is my responsibility to make better judgments."
According to many Republicans, several White House officials could be making
better judgments, even on matters as basic and essential as the style of Mr. Bush's
public appearances, which do not cast him as suitably presidential in some
Republicans' eyes. Too often, a few of them said, he comes across as small,
tentative or insufficiently impassioned.
Sig Rogich, an image consultant who worked in the White House for Mr. Bush's
father, said the president and his advisers needed time.
"He's young and he looks young," Mr. Rogich said. "When he was elected governor
of Texas, they talked about the same kinds of things. They talked about stature. He
turned out to be one of the most popular governors in Texas history. There will be
an evolution. It happens in every White House." |
