The WaPo ran a curious item today on a White House staff that, apparently, is feeling a little run down.
Andrew H. Card Jr. wakes at 4:20 in the morning, shows up at the White House an hour or so later, convenes his senior staff at 7:30 and then proceeds to a blur of other meetings that do not let up until long after the sun sets. He gets home at 9 or 10 at night and sometimes fields phone calls until 11 p.m. Then he gets up and does it all over again.
Of all the reasons that President Bush is in trouble these days, not to be overlooked are inadequate REM cycles. Like chief of staff Card, many of the president’s top aides have been by his side nonstop for more than five years, not including the first campaign, recount and transition. This is a White House, according to insiders, that is physically and emotionally exhausted, battered by scandal and drained by political setbacks.
“By the time you get to year six, there’s never a break . . . and you get tired,” said Ed Rollins, who served five years in President Ronald Reagan’s White House. “There’s always a crisis. It wears you down. This has been a White House that hasn’t really had much change at all. There is a fatigue factor that builds up. You sometimes don’t see the crisis approaching. You’re not as on guard as you once were.”
Fair enough. Most modern White Houses have considerable staff turnover. Officials come in, put in a few grueling years, and move on. This president, however, who’s known to put loyalty above all else, has a set team that doesn’t seem to go anywhere, unless they’re brought up on criminal charges (see Allen, Claude and Libby, Scooter). The Post piece suggests many of the president’s problems stem from a fatigued White House.
That’s one explanation, but I’m not convinced. The article doesn’t mention the president’s schedule, but as far as anyone can tell, he’s still maintaining the same hours as he always has — which is to say, in bed early, out of bed late, with plenty of time during the day for a rigorous exercise routine. I don’t disagree with the idea that Bush has made a series of poor, sometimes tragic, decisions, but there’s no reason to think exhaustion had anything to do with it.
For that matter, the setbacks themselves don’t comport to the explanation.
Lately it seems to many in the White House that they cannot catch a break — insurgents blow up a holy shrine in Iraq, tipping the country toward civil war; Vice President Cheney accidentally shoots a hunting partner; a former top Bush adviser is arrested on theft charges.
This almost makes it sound like Bush has been unlucky of late, and perhaps fatigue had something to do with it. Nonsense. The administration’s problems are of their own making. The war, the response to Katrina, the response to Cheney shooting a guy, the Abramoff affair, the Plame scandal, even responding to shoplifting accusations surrounding Claude Allen — none of these have anything to do with White House staffers being worn out after several years on the job. It’s the result of a frustrating combination of incompetence, corruption, and negligence.
The succession of crisis after crisis has taken its toll. Some in the White House sound frazzled. While there are few stories of aides nodding off in meetings, some duck outside during the day so the fresh air will wake them up. “We’re all burned out,” said one White House official who did not want to be named for fear of angering superiors. “People are just tired.”
Maybe so. But ultimately, the Bush gang is following a playbook, sticking to a predetermined agenda, and following the president’s lead. It’s how they operate. Replace them with others who follow the same tack and we’d likely see the same results.
Are Bush staffers tired? Probably. Does this explain their inability to govern? It does not.