White House tries to get on with business

WASHINGTON – The White House, attempting to distance President Bush from the indictment of a top staffer and ongoing investigation of Bush’s chief political adviser, is moving swiftly to focus attention on business that lies ahead, from the appointment of a Supreme Court justice to needed budget-cutting and far-reaching legislative reforms.

The president even is confronting his greatest challenge in the midst of a second-term legal scandal, using his weekly radio address Saturday to rally support for the war in Iraq and the “heartbreaking” sacrifices of American troops who have died there. “The best way to honor the sacrifice of our fallen troops is to complete the mission and win the war on terror,” Bush said.

In practical terms, the White House will seek to separate the continuing probe of Karl Rove from the administration’s work, starting with the nomination of a new Supreme Court justice and then budget-cutting to pay for Hurricane Katrina recovery and moving on to tax reform and an overhaul of the nation’s immigration laws.

In proclaiming his focus on the nation’s business while critics pound away with complaints, Bush is following the playbook of former President Bill Clinton, who insisted he was working on what mattered to people even as impeachment swirled around him.

Yet reviving what remains of Bush’s second-term agenda will be a challenge given the new distractions that will cloud his ability to court public attention and congressional support.

Rove, Bush’s chief political adviser, has averted legal trouble at this juncture, after a grand jury’s indictment Friday of Lewis “Scooter” Libby. Libby quickly resigned as chief of staff for Vice President Dick Cheney after he was charged with obstruction of justice, perjury and making false statements in a two-year probe of the disclosure of a CIA operative’s identity.

Rove’s attorney, Robert Luskin, says he is cooperating with the ongoing investigation by special counsel Patrick Fitzgerald, the Chicago-based U.S. attorney, as Rove continues to serve as deputy chief of staff to a problem-plagued president. Luskin voices confidence Rove will be cleared of wrongdoing, but Fitzgerald isn’t saying where his inquiry is heading.

The mere loss of Libby, a close confidant to Cheney and Bush and an architect of administration foreign policy, is a blow for a White House that has prided itself on high ethical standards. And it’s a setback for a president who campaigned with pledges to uphold the honor and dignity of the office after Clinton’s impeachment for impeding an investigation of his affair with White House intern Monica Lewinsky.

At Camp David on Saturday, the president’s huddle of advisers included Harriet Miers, the White House counsel and close friend whom Bush had nominated for the Supreme Court only to see her withdraw last week in the face of growing criticism within his own party. Now Miers is helping Bush identify a new nominee, expected within days.

Today, Bush will make a personal move toward healing the political wounds by returning to Washington for a wreath-laying at the Capitol in honor of Rosa Parks, icon of the civil rights era, who will lie in honor in the Rotunda there for two days. The president and first lady Laura Bush will pay respects before public viewings begin Sunday evening.

The president also will shift his focus to foreign affairs, traveling to South America this week for a Summit of the Americas and then to Japan, China and South Korea before Thanksgiving.

Rove, for his part, has hired a public-relations consultant and seasoned crisis manager, in addition to his attorney, to handle a flood of press queries as the investigation continues.

But in political terms, questions about the exposure of CIA operative Valerie Plame’s identity will make it hard to redirect the public’s attention to the Bush agenda.

“This kind of situation … is like screaming into the wind,” said Steven Reich, a lawyer who served in the Clinton administration supervising legal teams confronting investigations of the former president.

“They are going to try to stay focused and get their message out,” Reich said. “But the real trouble here is that whatever message they are trying to get out gets lost in the clamor, and essentially they spend the rest of the administration on the defense.”

The controversy is particularly troubling for a president and vice president who have conducted perhaps the most disciplined West Wing operation in modern times, a White House assiduously “on message” and intolerant of aides who violate the confidentiality of their offices.

“It is an enormous distraction, particularly when it is your top people,” said one source close to Rove. “Everyone says they are glad that Karl didn’t get indicted. … But Scooter Libby, anyone who has been around here a long time knows just how important he is to the president.”

White House Chief of Staff Andrew Card has circulated a memo asking staffers to avoid being distracted by the Libby resignation. “Our work here at the White House is of critical importance, and the president expects everyone to work hard to advance the optimistic agenda he has laid out,” Card wrote.

This is the same chief of staff who periodically has assembled and instructed staff on the importance of keeping internal White House matters confidential.

Both Rove and Libby served as sources for reporters who wrote about, or knew of, Plame’s identity. That identity was revealed to some journalists after her husband, former Ambassador Joseph Wilson, publicly accused the administration of manipulating intelligence about weapons of mass destruction in the run-up to the invasion of Iraq.

“Presidents are judged by the people around them, and when those people come under an ethical cloud, it rains on the president,” said Darrell West, a political science professor at Brown University.

“It has to be a bittersweet moment for Bush, because his deputy chief of staff was not indicted but the vice president’s top adviser was,” West added. “They have to be worried about what happens from here on out.”

“What they are really saying is, `Please God, let this thing be over,”’ said Scott Fredericksen, an attorney who worked on an independent counsel’s investigation of fraud at the federal housing agency during the Reagan administration.

“When Fitzgerald says they are not done yet, he means it,” he said. “I have had my share of cases where we have convinced prosecutors not to indict, but they have continued investigating.”

Rove has maintained his chipper air at work throughout the past weeks, associates say, and is well-equipped to cope with further controversy while pressing Bush’s agenda in Congress and pursuing the party’s midterm congressional elections next year.

“He’s been dealing with this investigation for two years,” said Mark Corallo, a consultant and former Justice Department spokesman whom Rove has hired to handle public relations as the probe continues. Corallo is a veteran of crisis management for former Rep. Bob Livingston, R-La., who forfeited his claim to be House speaker in 1998 after admitting an extramarital affair.

The CIA controversy “has not stopped (Rove) from carrying out his responsibilities and giving the president solid advice and doing the many things he does every day,” Corallo said. “This is a guy who literally gets up before the sun comes up and doesn’t go home until the sun goes down, and in between that he is drinking from a fire hose all day.”