{"id":7013,"date":"2006-03-31T10:13:16","date_gmt":"2006-03-31T15:13:16","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com\/?p=7013"},"modified":"2006-03-31T10:13:16","modified_gmt":"2006-03-31T15:13:16","slug":"bushs-manservant","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/bushs-manservant\/","title":{"rendered":"Bush’s manservant"},"content":{"rendered":"

TNR’s [tag]Ryan Lizza[\/tag] has a fascinating look<\/a> at [tag]Andy Card[\/tag]’s resignation as the president’s [tag]Chief of Staff[\/tag], not necessarily because of any big controversy that sparked the departure, but because of the way the president perceives the man who effectively runs the White House.<\/p>\n

If you’ve watched West Wing on TV, you’ve no doubt seen the WH Chief of Staff as a towering figure who is integrally involved in shaping how a presidency operates. This depiction is in line with many actual White Houses, where presidents rely on their CoS as their right-hand man in matters of national, and international, significance.<\/p>\n

Bush, however, operates a little differently. Dan Froomkin suggested<\/a> the other day that Card has effectively served as “[tag]Bush’s nanny[\/tag],” a characterization bolstered by Card himself when he said he’s responsible for making sure Bush “has time to eat, sleep and be merry.”<\/p>\n

In a similar vein, Lizza described Card<\/a> as Bush’s “manservant.” One anecdote stood out.<\/p>\n

[Card] first arrived in the Bush world in 1979, when he chauffeured George H. W. Bush around New England during his long-shot presidential run. By the time he was named chief of staff in 2000, little had changed with respect to Card’s relationship with the Bush family. According to an account in Ron Suskind’s The Price of Loyalty, while interviewing Paul O’Neill for the job of Treasury secretary, Bush turned to a Secret Service agent and demanded, “Go get me Andy Card.” Bush didn’t summon him for his views on tax policy:<\/p>\n

Bush looked impatiently at Card, hard-eyed. “You’re the chief of staff. You think you’re up to getting us some cheeseburgers?”<\/p>\n

Card nodded. No one laughed. He all but raced out of the room.<\/p>\n

Card approached his job for the last five-plus years with the same fanatical humility. He scheduled Bush’s haircuts with the kind of professional enthusiasm that other senior officials reserved for mapping out war strategy or shaping Social Security policy. He sacrificed his weekends if Bush needed a biking partner.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Lizza speculates that Bush may have seen the way his father’s chiefs of staff garnered too much power and overcompensated by making Andrew Card perform the duties of a glorified intern. I like Kevin’s interpretation<\/a> better: that Bush is a “man-child” and “insecure blusterer” who enjoys these kind of sycophantic relationships.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

TNR’s [tag]Ryan Lizza[\/tag] has a fascinating look at [tag]Andy Card[\/tag]’s resignation as the president’s [tag]Chief of Staff[\/tag], not necessarily because of any big controversy that sparked the departure, but because of the way the president perceives the man who effectively runs the White House. If you’ve watched West Wing on TV, you’ve no doubt seen […]<\/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-7013","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7013","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=7013"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7013\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7013"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7013"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7013"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}