The high cost of loyalty
Posted on Tuesday, April 24, 2007
The other night at the perfectly awful White
House Correspondents bash, singer Sheryl
Crow and docudrama producer Laurie David of An Inconvenient Truth made their way across the vast landscape of tables to presidential adviser Karl Rove, the man who along with the media, sunspots and the nuclear threat has now become the focal point of blame for everything wrong in the world. What reportedly ensued was a bit of nastiness not uncommon to this annual nightmare that each year becomes more like an East Coast extension of the Academy Awards or one of those similar exercises in self- indulgence with more movie stars and celebrities than correspondents. According to the following day’s news accounts, Crow and David tried lecturing Rove about his responsibilities to them and were met with a reminder that he worked for the American people and not the entertainers. From there it apparently went down hill, although details were sparse.
The significance of this, if any, is twofold. First, one has to wonder why with terrible food, the din from 3, 000 guests that makes it difficult to hear the person next to you, and the opportunity to be insulted at every opportunity by overmedicated invitees and over the hill comedians with dated material, Washington’s political elite from the president down continue to subject themselves to this obnoxious party. How many sadomasochistic politicians does it take to have a quorum ?
More importantly, in this instance and others occurring almost daily now, it has become increasingly obvious that with all his problems President Bush is being ill served by the likes of Rove and a variety of others who are the constant targets of the president’s political detractors. Rove, whose (like it or not ) genius elected Bush twice, should have left the White House after his 2004 success for no other reason than to save his boss from the painful ricochets. Winning in this burg can be unforgivable, particularly if you’re not supposed to and you don’t happen to be one of those drawing room liberal insiders and their West Coast pals who never seem to leave town.
Be that as it may, the fault lies with Bush himself and his stubborn loyalty to his good old boy pals.
There are those who leave the administration but whose actions continue to reflect poorly on their former bosses. That is particularly true of the so-called architect of the Iraq invasion as deputy Defense secretary, Paul Wolfowitz, whose tenure as the head of the World Bank has been marred with ethical challenges for alleged financial favoritism to his significant other.
But it isn’t historically unusual for presidents to expend political capital and popularity on too much loyalty to friends and allies. Harry Truman’s cronies almost did him in, and Richard Nixon’s did. Ronald Reagan barely escaped his good friends and Jimmy Carter lost re-election because he didn’t understand there was a vast difference between the political sophistication of Atlanta and that of Washington. Only Dwight Eisenhower with his Army experience knew how to play the game, firing top aide Sherman Adams without hesitation at the first breath of scandal.
This is an administration hunkered down and fighting to survive a now unfriendly Congress and dwindling public support. It does not need to be constantly distracted. At the dinner the other night a somber Bush uttered only a few lines of solace to the victims and survivors of the Virginia Tech tragedy, forgoing the usual presidential levity at these occasions. He clearly was uncomfortable being there—and certainly so was Rove.
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