Last of the Texans Departs From the Bush Camarilla

The departure of Karen Hughes brings the years of the Texas White House to a close, leaving President Bush to govern without the last vestige of the loyal coterie that followed him to Washington from the governor’s mansion of the Lone Star State.The president now faces the next 13 months as a lame duck president without the advice and energy brought to the White House by what he called the Texas Triangle, the small group of like-minded Republicans who bolstered his electoral chances first in Texas, then on the national stage.This year has also seen the resignations of two other Texas stalwarts, Karl Rove, Mr. Bush’s former policy and election fighting guru, and Dan Bartlett, who filled in for Ms. Hughes as adviser on communications when she took two years away from the administration in 2002.Mr. Bush has also lost this year his former Texas attorney general, Alberto Gonzales, who as the administration’s attorney general was brought low over the firing of federal prosecutors, and the Texan lawyer and aide Harriet Miers, general counsel for the Bush transition team in 1994 and then White House general counsel, whom the president failed to have elevated to the Supreme Court.Ms. Hughes, 50, announced yesterday that she will resume her private life in Austin, Texas, next month after two stints advising Mr. Bush.Secretary of State Rice, with Ms. Hughes at her side, paid tribute to the departing undersecretary for public diplomacy. “She has made it possible for every ambassador around the world to feel comfortable going out and talking about America’s message, pressing the public diplomacy case,” Ms. Rice said at a press conference.But it is in her role as political adviser that Mr. Bush will miss Ms. Hughes. As his director of communications when he was governor and then in a similar role in the White House, Ms. Hughes provided clear and candid guidance to a president who has never felt at ease without consulting members of his long-standing political machine.The departure of the Texans comes at a time when Mr. Bush is feeling his comparative impotence on the domestic scene in Washington. Since the elections of November last year, and despite his stated aim of trying to work with the new Democratic majority in both houses of Congress, he has struggled to find an effective modus operandi.The president has acutely felt the absence of power this week in his flagging campaign to have Judge Michael Mukasey of New York be confirmed as the new attorney general, amid arguments over whether the waterboarding of terrorist suspects is legal.Yesterday, Judge Mukasey’s most prominent supporter, Senator Schumer, hesitated before confirming his continued backing for the judge, whose letter to Congress on Tuesday offering his opinion on the legality of interrogation techniques appeared to fall short of the outright declaration that waterboarding is a method of torture that might ensure his confirmation.Mr. Bush has been similarly hamstrung by Democratic efforts to smuggle hikes in public spending on the back of essential budget bills. The Democratic leadership, lacking the votes to bring the Iraq war to an end by cutting off funds to the military, has resorted instead to a more indirect method of hampering the president’s ability to govern.The president is left proposing to Congress appointments to his tail end administration that the Democrats veto with relish, while in turn applying his veto to measures like the extension of the State Children’s Health Insurance Program, which he considers fiscally irresponsible and a means of nationalizing health care.The next appointments battle is likely to involve a former two-term Republican governor from North Dakota, Edward Schafer, whom the president yesterday nominated as agriculture secretary.In the stalemate that has ensued, the Democratic congressional leadership appears to be enjoying setting up the president to veto measures that, in the shorthand of public debate as the elections loom, make him appear unsympathetic. His S-CHIP veto has been presented as evidence of his indifference to the plight of poor children and families.In response, the president has taken to haranguing his Democratic opponents from a lectern on the north portico of the White House. On Friday he berated Congress and implored them to “stop wasting time and get essential work done on behalf of the American people.”On Tuesday, in an announcement from the White House, he said, “It’s hard to imagine a more cynical political strategy than trying to hold hostage funding for our troops in combat and our wounded warriors in order to extract $11 billion in additional social spending.”Yesterday, before the annual conference of the Grocery Manufacturers Association/Food Products Association Fall in Washington, the president again assaulted the Democrats for pressing forward with their enhanced S-CHIP proposals.“Instead of pushing to federalize health care all at once, they’re pushing for the same goal through a series of incremental steps. With each step, they want to bring America closer to a nationalized system where the government dictates the medical coverage for every citizen,” he said.

Last of the Texans Departs From the Bush Camarilla

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