Now the only question is: Who will be left to turn off the lights? The exodus of some of President Bush's closest friends and confidants make it seem like Bush'€™s A-team has departed 1600 Pennsylvania Ave. It seems even those closest to the President now think he’s a lame duck.
As if the high profile departures of Rove and Gonzales were not enough, last week White House Press Secretary Tony Snow announced he was leaving. The charismatic former Fox News anchor said he was leaving due to financial reasons, citing that the job'€™s salary was less than what he made as a TV anchor and public speaker. Apparently Mr. Snow doesn€'t think a measly $168,000 a year is enough compensation to wait around as the Bush administration slowly sinks over the next 15 months.
It can be argued that once a second-term president starts heading for the home stretch, people in his administration should start to look for their next jobs, and often enough senior staffers leave before January 20. But for this many high-profile staffers to leave this early is unheard of, and seems especially odd when taken into account Bush’s well-documented loyalty to his people. In addition to the big three departures, several lower-profile figures, such as White House Budget Director Rob Portman and White House Counselor Dan Bartlett, have also departed in the last eight weeks.
As for Rove and Gonzales, I was shocked to see them go. Rove has been at Bush’s side since 1994. He'€™s been called Bush’s brain, even though he denies such claims of his own import. Rove was the one responsible for the robo-calls in South Carolina that alleged that John McCain had an illegitimate black son; these calls helped stop McCain’s momentum after his New Hampshire primary win in 2000. It'€™s safe to say that without Rove, Bush wouldn'™t even have been elected president once.
In 2002, Rove helped the Republicans pick up seats in the midterm elections, marking only the third time a president’s party has picked up seats in a midterm election. Rove went on to engineer Bush'€™s 2004 win over John Kerry and earned the title "the architect"€ from Bush.
Rove was technically only the deputy chief of staff, but his influence over the administration is so great that many pundits have said his departure marked the beginning of the end for Bush, with the President conceding that he was unlikely to advance any other major accomplishments during the remainder of his term.
It seemed not long ago that Gonzales had weathered the storm of representatives and senators calling for his resignation. Gonzales lied before Congress and made a complete fool of himself by saying "€œI don'€™t know"€ more than 100 times in Congressional testimony about the firing of U.S. Attorneys. He took something that the President had every right to do -- fire the attorneys -- and turned it into a giant scandal.
Should he have resigned? Absolutely. He was unfit for that office because he seemed to believe that the attorney general is little more than the President’s personal counsel. But Bush remained firm in his support of his old cohort, and therefore I thought he'€™d serve out the final 15 months. Gonzales'€™ resignation must mean he merely tired of serving as a punching bag for legislators infuriated with the conduct of the executive branch.
With Rove, Gonzales and Snow gone, replaced by a set of nobodies who will never be heard from again, who will be around to turn the lights off on January 20, 2009? Or will the president, alone and abandoned by all his lackeys, be stuck with the task himself?
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