Washington – Bowing to Republican nervousness about this fall’s elections, President Bush shifted Karl Rove out of day-to-day policy-making duties Wednesday while also moving to replace the public face of the White House.
The moves – press secretary Scott McClellan’s resignation and Rove’s surrendering of a key policy role – amounted to a marked escalation of Bush’s damage-control efforts as he tries to reinvigorate his battered presidency.
Many Republicans, including some inside the Bush administration, believe the moves couldn’t come soon enough as they watch Bush’s poll numbers scrape near his all-time lows with November elections for Congress drawing closer.
Bush’s longtime political guru, Rove had taken on day-to-day management of setting White House policy after Bush won re-election in 2004, an unusual and controversial move for someone whose main experience had been as a political hired gun.
That gave Rove broad influence over everything from homeland security to the economy and even to national security, an area where Rove had no experience and one where Bush’s handling of the Iraq war has come under growing fire from a restless public.
Since then, even Republicans acknowledge that the White House has suffered one policy stumble after another, from the failed Social Security effort to the botched Hurricane Katrina response to the recent Dubai ports controversy.
So Rove will go back to focusing mainly on political issues, not least of which will involve helping Republicans craft a cohesive message for the midterm elections, GOP insiders say.
The moves came less than a week after new Chief of Staff Joshua Bolten took over and signaled changes ahead. Bolten gave Rove’s former policy duties to a new deputy chief of staff, Joel Kaplan, a man so close to Bolten that one former associate said they finish each other’s sentences.
McClellan decided to leave after almost three years as White House press secretary. “The White House is going through a period of transition. Change can be helpful,” he said. “I am ready to move on.”
During that time, McClellan’s standing with reporters took a beating after he apparently unknowingly passed on statements by Rove and Lewis “Scooter” Libby that they had no role in the CIA leak case, which turned out to be untrue.
