{"id":6989,"date":"2006-03-29T09:10:12","date_gmt":"2006-03-29T14:10:12","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com\/?p=6989"},"modified":"2006-03-29T09:10:12","modified_gmt":"2006-03-29T14:10:12","slug":"they-need-a-renovation-not-just-a-new-front-door","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/they-need-a-renovation-not-just-a-new-front-door\/","title":{"rendered":"‘They need a renovation, not just a new front door’"},"content":{"rendered":"

The clamoring in Washington for a change at the White House has, oddly enough, not come from Dems. By and large, most Dems on the Hill don’t particularly care who’s running Bush’s White House; they’re more concerned with the guy in the Oval Office. The unsolicited advice for the president has come from Republicans<\/i>, who’ve made little effort the past couple of months to hide their disappointment<\/a> with the [tag]White House staff[\/tag].<\/p>\n

With this in mind, the right’s reaction to [tag]Andy Card[\/tag]’s resignation was bound to be more interesting than the left’s. Would it satisfy the calls for a staff shake-up? Are Republicans on the Hill happy now that the Chief of Staff who wouldn’t return their phone calls has stepped aside? At this point, it seems the Card-to-[tag]Bolten[\/tag] transition is not<\/a> what most of the GOP had in mind.<\/p>\n

“Josh is a good guy — just not what this White House needs. They need a renovation, not just a new front door,” said a senior Republican who served in top positions in President Reagan’s White House and spoke on condition of anonymity because he continues to deal with the Bush White House.<\/p>\n

“They need people who can give the president honest appraisals, and not just the same group that has gotten him in trouble in the second term,” he said.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Roll Call had a detailed report<\/a> today reflecting widespread disappointment among Republicans in DC. They seemed pleased that Card is leaving, but they’re dissatisfied with his replacement and wanted a more sweeping change.<\/p>\n

“This is not a change — this is just Josh Bolten moving from the OMB to chief of staff,” Sen. [tag]Trent Lott[\/tag] (R-Miss.) said, later adding, “They still need men and women of stature and gravitas in a number of slots there at the White House. They need experienced people to give them a hand … I do think they need more disparate voices in there.” […]<\/p>\n

One senior GOP Senate staffer said more shakeups are a must to ensure the political health of the administration and the party, saying: “I think they’ve hit rock bottom.” This aide said Card’s departure is a mixed blessing: “The good thing is new ideas and a burst of energy is really needed. The bad is that it’s more of the same. It’s not someone new coming in. … Let’s just hope there will be more [changes], for all our sake.”<\/p>\n

Another Republican staffer was more specific, saying, “It would send a strong signal if [tag]John Bolten[\/tag]’s first move is to is clean out the press operation starting with Dan Bartlett.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

I think we can safely characterize the Republican response to yesterday’s announcement as “not impressed.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The clamoring in Washington for a change at the White House has, oddly enough, not come from Dems. By and large, most Dems on the Hill don’t particularly care who’s running Bush’s White House; they’re more concerned with the guy in the Oval Office. The unsolicited advice for the president has come from Republicans, who’ve […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[617],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6989","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6989","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6989"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6989\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6989"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6989"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6989"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}