What's Behind the White House Staff Shake-Up?

April 19, 2006 — -- Republicans have been urging the president to shake up his staff. Now he has given them what they want. Or has he?

We won't know until the staff changes are complete, and until a new Bush agenda has been unveiled. But for now, Bush has quieted some of his in-party critics.

One Republican consultant, who did not want to be named, told ABC News, "Look, he has at least taken some important first steps. ...These changes have given the impression of new energy. We needed that. I just hope there is sufficient follow-through to keep up the energy."

The change most people will notice is the impending departure of press secretary Scott McClellan. No one, with the possible exception of the president, spends more time on TV expounding the White House line on whatever the subject of the day is.

Privately, a number of Republicans on Capitol Hill wanted him to go. They found McClellan unpersuasive and bland. They also thought his credibility had been damaged after he assured the nation that White House aides knew nothing about the "outing" of CIA official Valerie Plame. When that proved untrue, reporters subjected McClellan to one of the most brutal grillings in recent memory.

While McClellan's credibility may have been damaged, it was not because reporters felt he had purposely lied. Most reporters regard him as a decent man who simply repeated what his superiors told him.

McClellan said he told the president on Monday he would be leaving. It is not clear whether McClellan chose to resign or was pushed. It is widely assumed in Washington that McClellan was given the signal that this might be a good time to find less stressful work.

He will probably also find lucrative employment. Most ex-press secretaries do very well after stepping down as the mouthpiece for the leader of the free world. As McClellan's predecessor, Ari Fleischer, has found, making speeches for hire can be very profitable.

One of the few who didn't make much of an effort to cash in was Marlin Fitzwater, who served George H.W. Bush. He made a brief stab at consulting, and then wrote his memoirs, the most affecting part being his recounting of a hardscrabble Kansas childhood in a dirt-floor house. Fitzwater now lives modestly in eastern Maryland, sometimes casting an acerbic eye toward goings-on inside the beltway. He seems quite content.

McClellan, like Fitzwater, may also have had enough of Washington. No one would be surprised if he soon returned to Texas. Bush, in noting his press secretary's resignation, said, "One of these days he and I are going to be rocking in chairs in Texas talking about the good old days of his time as press secretary."

McClellan didn't make policy, he just defended it. So his departure does not signal a rush of new programs. His successor is likely to have no more say over policy than he did. Still, a new face at the briefing-room podium will catch the public's eye and could symbolize a fresh start midway in Bush's second term. Far more substantive than McClellan's resignation are the other changes in chief of staff, deputy chief of staff and budget director positions.

Bush Needs to Break Out of Slump

Political junkies are still working to decipher what the president is trying to do by taking away part of Karl Rove's policy duties. Other aides say this is not a demotion, just a way of making the White House more efficient while also giving an overworked Rove more time to focus on this fall's congressional elections.

The new Chief of Staff Josh Bolten has clearly followed an old bit of advice found in management manuals: If you are going to make changes, do it early. More changes could include the White House legislative team, which has been criticized for its relations with congressional Republicans. And virtually no one expects Treasury Secretary John Snow to remain in his job for long.

Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld seems safe after the president's solid backing this week. But the key word here is "seems."

Changing press secretaries and finding new people who can get along with the committee barons on Capitol Hill -- all these things could help the president, but only if he has more success at the policy level.

"There is no doubt that policy failures and a public sense of unhappiness with the policies is at the root of a whole lot of this [staff shake-up]," said Norman Ornstein, at the American Enterprise Institute. "The bottom line is that if the policies don't work, if there's a sense that you're not getting much done, no people -- no matter how much stature they have -- are going to help you."

Like a struggling baseball player, the president needs to break out of a slump. He needs, if not home runs at least some doubles. Maybe that would include getting a deal with Congress on immigration, persuading Congress to make the Bush tax cuts permanent, or finding a way to make Medicare prescription-drug options more user-friendly. Or perhaps he'll announce yet another energy policy, but one that people believe might actually make a difference at the gas pump.

Bush also needs some luck -- something all successful presidents need. Most of the big issues Americans are worrying about are not things a president can do much about in the short run. First, the economy must keep perking along without any serious dips. Lower gas prices, say maybe a drop of 50 cents a gallon, would stop a lot of grumbling.

Above all, the country wants good news from Iraq. If the president can get lucky on things Americans really care about, that might well impress them more than job shuffles at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. It might also stop Democrats from trotting out that old line about rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic.