White House needs extreme makeover

By PHILIP GAILEY
ST. PETERSBURG TIMES
The presidency of George W. Bush needs to be born again, for the country's sake as well as his own.
He doesn't have to fall on his knees and repent, but he needs to turn away from the arrogance, vindictiveness, spin and cronyism that have characterized his administration and embrace humility, candor, competency and accountability -- in effect, an extreme makeover.
Last week marked the darkest days of Bush's once-swaggering presidency -- the 2,000th American died in Iraq fighting an unpopular war; Harriet Miers, his choice for the Supreme Court, was forced to withdraw her nomination to quell a revolt on the Republican right; and the special prosecutor investigating the outing of a CIA agent followed the scent of scandal into the center of power inside the White House.
I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, chief of staff for Vice President Cheney, was indicted Friday on five counts of perjury, making false statements and obstruction of justice. Karl Rove, the president's powerful strategist, is still under investigation and may not yet be off the hook.
In his first presidential campaign, Bush promised the American people he would cleanse the White House of sleaze and scandal (at the time the country was still reeling from Bill Clinton's impeachment for lying about sex with a White House intern) and restore "honor and integrity" to the people's house.
Now allegations of criminal wrongdoing by at least one of the president's men have defiled that promise.
Less than a year into his second term, Bush finds himself increasingly isolated and politically weakened as he watches his restoration of the "imperial presidency" crumble. Bush and Cheney came to office determined to reclaim and reassert the prerogatives of the chief executive that had eroded in the post-Watergate years. They used the "war on terror" and later the invasion of Iraq to concentrate power in the executive branch to a degree not seen since Richard Nixon's presidency.
'Imperial presidency'
After the 9/11 attacks, the London-based The Economist magazine wrote last week, Bush-Cheney advisers "seized on the crisis to restore the imperial presidency to its full purple -- so much so that Chuck Hagel, a Republican senator, complained that they treated Congress as a mere 'appendage.'"
The Economist went on: "They declared and conducted the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq with little congressional oversight. They extended the executive branch's powers of surveillance and prosecution through the USA Patriot Act. And they insisted that the commander in chief had a right to hold 'enemy combatants' without due process of law."
The result was an arrogance of power and lack of intellectual seriousness that have led to Bush's fall from grace. The Libby indictment is rooted in the administration's efforts to manipulate intelligence and mislead the American people about the reason for going to war in Iraq. This is what comes from a White House mind-set that doesn't tolerate dissent and punishes administration critics who dare to speak the truth.
Bush should use this low point of his presidency to make a fresh start. The first thing he needs to do is to learn from his mistakes and change his way of governing. Yes, that means paying attention to details of his policy priorities and demanding more of his subordinates than just loyalty. With more than three years to go in his second term, he has time to right his off-course presidency. Except for the visceral Bush haters, most Americans would rather see the president succeed than fail, because they know that failure has consequences for our nation.
After the Miers fiasco, Bush may feel his most urgent need is to repair his relationship with his party's right wing -- to "consolidate the base." But a president cannot govern from the fringe, especially at a time of war and political crisis.
Regardless of whether Rove escapes indictment, Bush needs to shake up his White House staff, which is no longer on top of its game. That's what Ronald Reagan did at the height of the Iran-Contra scandal. And while he's at it, Bush should hold Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld accountable for his mismanagement of the Iraq war and banish Dick Cheney to his secret bunker to pass the time reading torture manuals.
Of course, Bush is not likely to do any such thing.
It would be out of character for a president who prizes personal loyalty above all else. So he'll probably just hunker down and try to ride out the political storm. Before it's over, this White House may need to install hurricane shutters.
X Philip Gailey is editor of editorials for the St. Petersburg Times. Distributed by Scripps Howard News Service.