Will Bush Clean (The White) House?

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KEVIN DIETSCH / UPI / LANDOV

White House Press Secretary Scott McClellan, asked Wednesday about growing speculation in Washington over "the fatigue factor" of Bush Administration senior staff, dismissed what he called "a parlor game" and drew chuckles by saying that he was "tired of some of the questions."

But current concern over the level of exhaustion and lack of new ideas in the West Wing isn't necessarily a laughing matter. Some well-known, and mostly anonymous, Republicans outside the White House are indeed agitating for new blood. One Republican official said that Bush needs "a heavyweight for outreach to the Hill" and is considering "some senior folks to get some rudders back," but added that "they won't go outside the family." And Sen. Norman Coleman (R-Minn.), usually considered close to the White House, went public this week with a view that has been whispered among Republican operatives, telling The Associated Press Tuesday that he has "some concerns about the team that's around the President," and that the staff should be reexamined.

Still, people close to the President said he would not make any major changes in response to what they consider, as McClellan also described it today, "inside-Washington babble." Friends of the President said that if Coleman wanted his advice to be considered, he should have given it to Bush privately. (A Coleman aide said the office had no further comment.) And several Republican officials said that if any change were made, it would be the addition of a wise man often referred to as "a David Gergen figure" rather than the departure (forced or otherwise) of any key staff members. Gergen, now a Harvard professor, served Presidents Richard Nixon, Gerald Ford, Ronald Reagan and Bill Clinton.

The officials said a new high-level appointee would be likely someone already in Bush's inner circle, such as former Commerce Secretary Donald L. Evans; Budget Director Joshua B. Bolten; U.S. Trade Representative Rob Portman; Karen Hughes, the Under Secretary of State for Public Diplomacy and Public Affairs; or former Republican National Committee chairmen Marc F. Racicot and Ed Gillespie. Former Senator Dan Coats of Indiana, who helped with Bush's two Supreme Court confirmations, was also mentioned. A Republican official familiar with White House deliberations, while careful to stress that only the President knows what is going to happen, said: "If the President was going to bring in an additional person, it would likely be someone that he had a preexisting relationship with and had confidence in — that understood the complex relationships that exist in the White House today."

It is true that when things go bad for any White House — and an NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll released Wednesday night put Bush's approval rating at 37% — rumors of a shakeup always begin to fly. And indeed, all of the speculation was dismissed by some knowledgeable people as just that. However, CBS News reported Wednesday night that Howard Baker, who was Senate majority leader, chief of staff to Ronald Reagan and ambassador to Japan for this administration, had placed a call to the White House on Tuesday and "sent a direct message" to Chief of Staff Andrew Card urging him to hire former Senator Fred Thompson of Tennessee as a top adviser to help inject some new blood. Last July, Bush named Thompson — a lobbyist and former Law & Order actor — to counsel his first Supreme Court nominee, who turned out to be John Roberts, through the confirmation process. CBS quoted Baker, who has previously complained that the current West Wing doesn't listen to him, as saying, "I did not recommend firing anyone, just adding a new face." Baker's law office in Tennessee did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

As if to underscore that he was not cloistered, Bush held two meetings with lawmakers on Wednesday — a morning session in the Cabinet Room with five Republican Senate leaders and 10 Republican House leaders, and an afternoon meeting in the Yellow Oval room with about two dozen Republican House members to talk about the legislative agenda. Those meetings, not surprisingly, became fodder for further speculation. Asked if the first group of lawmakers that came to the White House on Wednesday had raised the type of concerns that Coleman had, Scott McClellan answered sharply, "No, of course not."