The Bush White House relieves itself in public.

Friday, April 21, 2006

Wild Thing: Say this about Josh Bolten: He's a reliever. On Wednesday, the president's new chief of staff relieved Karl Rove of his policy-making duties. With less than subtle hints, he persuaded Scott McClellan to relieve himself of his Snow-job duties. All week long, Bolten has urged White House staff to pack their bags, relieving them of their loyalty duties. Today, the New York Times reports that he wants to relieve White House Counsel Harriet Miers of her has-been duties.

The banner headlines in yesterday's Washington Post heralding Rove's demotion suggest that this is how Washington spells relief. Here in the nation's capital, scandal is the favorite spectator sport, and the current owners have done an excellent job of filling the seats this season. But whenever there's a break in the action, Washington fans love the chance to watch a good, old-fashioned power struggle—especially when power is dwindling so there isn't enough to go around.

By that standard, this week's Kabuki is a good one. Scott McClellan lost the ability to snow the press long ago. If Harriet Miers has any responsibilities left, it's only because she was the first loyalist Bush forced to walk the plank and withdraw her Supreme Court nomination.

In recent months, Karl Rove's policy responsibilities have consisted of 1) trying not to go to jail; 2) trying not to get fired; and 3) making sure this year's State of the Union didn't propose any policies like the ones he put in last year's. From the White House to the Congress, Republicans' 2006 game plan all along has been to not offer a national agenda. Rove's job is to try to give voters what they want, which in this case is to relieve the Republicans of their policy responsibilities.

Here in Washington, the crowd roared its approval for taking Rove down a notch. The move gave all sides what they wanted: Congressional Republicans can take credit for the appearance of change; Democrats can keep trashing their favorite bogeyman and pointing out that nothing has changed; the White House can insist that from now on, Rove will spend every moment thinking about the elections, as if in his policy role he had ever thought about anything else.

Reality Show: There are two big problems with the Bush strategy. One trouble with insider power struggles is that the actors take them even more seriously than the fans. On Wednesday, Rove worked hard to spin the story of his own realignment. Despite his best efforts, the White House got the this-is-a-big-deal spin it wanted. Rove discovered what Democrats have said all along about the Ownership Society: You're bound to end up with a smaller portfolio.

Today's Miers story is stranger still. The Times article quotes "an influential Republican with close ties to Bolten" saying that pushing her out the door is "a reflection of Josh's thinking." Then it quotes the same Republican saying of the shake-up, "This is not Josh, this is Bush. ... Bush is very good at using other people as a vehicle to get things done." Then it reminds us that, as always, we never know who's using whom: "It was not clear whether Mr. Bolten was floating a trial balloon to gauge White House reaction to the idea, or whether he might have been intending to send a signal to Ms. Miers that he would like her to think about leaving on her own."

In a White House where Scooter Libby portrayed himself to the Times as a former congressional aide, "an influential Republican with close ties to Bolten" could be anyone from new Bolten deputy Joel Kaplan to President Bush to Josh Bolten himself. We can't make out the source from here in the cheap seats, but we're pretty sure it's not Harriet Miers.

The other trouble with Bolten's strategy is that calming Republican nerves in Washington won't help win back voters in November. On the contrary, the less congressional Republicans panic, the less likely they'll do anything productive. The new Bush White House is doing a fine job of relieving itself—but that's not a great relief to the American people. ... 1:51 P.M. (link)