John LeBoutillier
Thursday, July 5, 2001

The senior White House staff is feuding, leaking and going for each other’s jugulars.

The jockeying for pre-eminence is very transparent.

G.W. Bush had better take control – soon – or his presidency will be imperiled.

Let me explain:

1) In the past two weeks there have been a series of carefully orchestrated leaks to the media about various senior White House aides. First there was the story about Karl Rove meeting with executives from Intel Corporation while he was still holding Intel stock.

2) Then came a similar story last week about Rove also participating in meetings to formulate the Bush energy plan – also while holding stock in Enron and other energy companies.

3) This week another carefully placed story in the "Periscope" section of Newsweek about Rove and Karen Hughes. In this 'leak' Rove is made to look bad for leaking allegedly false information about John McCain having brain cancer.

4) In Newsweek's cover story on stem cell research, it is said that Bush has prohibited Rove from talking to the press until the stem cell issue has been resolved.

5) This week's Time magazine has a Hughes-leaked story praising her image massaging for G.W. Bush – and inherently criticizing other White House staff for their eagerness to veto the Patients' Bill of Rights.

6) In a story over on the left of this page – in our Inside Cover section – another careful leak: that longtime Bush aide Mary Matalin is on the 'outs' in this Bush White House.

What is going on here?

Is it that Karen Hughes is merely fighting Karl Rove?

Is she trying to become the top White House aide?

Or is something more complex going on here?

Are the president’s parents and closest friends seeing the deteriorating poll ratings and trying to place blame on a scapegoat?

Yes, to those who question the poll ratings, G.W. Bush is sinking. Proof of this can be seen yesterday in Philadelphia when the staff placed him in 'neighborhood' settings, throwing a football, sitting with the baseball mascot, the Phillie Phanatic, and playing golf the day before. This is all an attempt to make Bush 'connect' with the average person – and to counteract poll ratings that show voters think Bush is not concerned with their problems and is too close to Big Business.

Image re-positioning is nothing new. Nor is staff infighting. But all of this happening just 4 ½ months into a new presidency is disturbing.

We have to ask: when is G.W. Bush going to assert himself and take charge?

Why – other than on the tax cut – has he seemed so passive, so distant, so removed – so uninterested?

Why has this man – holding the single best job on Planet Earth from which to bring positive change for millions of people – appeared so 'transparent'?

He should be seizing the moment! If he wants to be the inheritor of the Ronald Reagan mantle, then he should grab the White House podium and teach the American people why we need school choice; he should hop on Air Force One and educate the American people about why we need to make fundamental changes in the way our federal government confiscates our money and then wastes it; he should go overseas and tell the world's remaining dictatorships – like China, Vietnam, Cuba and North Korea – that we aren’t going to subsidize their reigns of terror. If they want our dough, they are going to behave properly – and humanely.

In other words, G.W. Bush has to show that he cares!

He has to show that holding the presidency means everything to him.

Absent that passion and in a leadership vacuum, his staff will continue the embarrassing spectacle of infighting, jockeying and leaking.

It is petty, demeaning and shameful – to Bush and to the presidency.

G.W. Bush's future depends on his hunger and his passion.

We are about to find out what he's made of.