Bush filling new Cabinet with loyalists

WASHINGTON – President Bush is tightening his already close circle of advisers in his second term by putting loyalists in charge of major government agencies.

Freed from political calculations in picking Cabinet secretaries, Bush is turning to old friends from Texas and trusted aides to run the federal bureaucracy. His selection Tuesday of national security adviser Condoleezza Rice to replace Secretary of State Colin Powell was just the latest example.

Critics worry that the trend will choke off dissenting voices in an administration known for discipline, message management and a tendency to equate dissent with disloyalty. Most of the departing secretaries came to the Bush administration with their own power bases, making it easier for them to stand up to the president and his closest advisers.

Their replacements tend to be steadfast Bush supporters whose careers are inextricably linked to the president’s political ascent.

“It reinforces the concept of group think and reduces the inflow of new ideas,” said Shirley Anne Warshaw, a presidential scholar at Gettysburg College in Pennsylvania. “These are loyalists.”

But Warshaw said the personnel changes would help Bush focus attention and energy on his second-term agenda. Other presidents, including Ronald Reagan, have made similar moves in their second terms.

“It’s not uncommon, once a president is well established, to put loyalists in positions like that. You’re done reaching out,” said George Edwards III, a presidential scholar at Texas A&M University.

White House spokesman Scott McClellan bristled at suggestions that Bush wants to close off internal debate.

“That’s a very uninformed view of how this White House operates,” he said.

“He’s always been someone who has welcomed a wide diversity of views from members of his team, and that is what he will continue to receive.”

Still, it’s hard to imagine that there’ll be much internal dissent from some of the new Cabinet secretaries or from other top officials, such as CIA Director Porter Goss.

And even if they do speak out, they may not have the clout of their predecessors.

Rice was a Russian specialist at Stanford University when Bush turned to her for advice on foreign policy before his 2000 presidential campaign. She replaces one of the best known and most popular figures in America.

Powell, the former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, was considered a possible presidential candidate before he agreed to take a job with Bush.

As secretary of state, he was the most forceful dissenting voice in policy disputes with Vice President Dick Cheney and Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld.

“At a time when you want other voices around the table, respectful voices, who have alternative ideas, I’m afraid we’re going to miss that,” said Sen. Christopher Dodd, D-Conn.

At the Justice Department, Bush tapped White House counsel Alberto Gonzales, a confidant from Texas, to replace Attorney General John Ashcroft.

Gonzales, the son of migrant farm workers, was a little-known Houston lawyer before Bush, then governor of Texas, hired him as a legal adviser.

Ashcroft, a favorite of Christian conservatives, came to the Justice Department after serving as governor of Missouri and as one of the state’s U.S. senators.

Administration officials said another veteran Bush adviser, Margaret Spellings, is in line to replace Education Secretary Rod Paige.

Spellings, who went by the name Margaret LaMontagne before her recent marriage, worked on Bush’s first campaign for governor in 1994 and has been with him ever since.

Paige, 71, won acclaim as superintendent of the Houston school district before coming to Washington.

Another Bush loyalist, Medicare chief Mark McClellan, is said to be under consideration to replace Health and Human Services Secretary Tommy Thompson.

Thompson, a former Wisconsin governor, hasn’t announced his resignation, but he isn’t expected to stay for a second Bush term.

McClellan, a physician, is the brother of White House press secretary Scott McClellan, who also served as Bush’s spokesman in Texas.