WP: Bush Is Keeping Cabinet Secretaries Close to Home

[kskiska]

Spending Time at White House Required

Thursday, March 31, 2005; Page A01

President Bush is requiring Cabinet members to spend several hours a week at the White House compound, a move top aides say eases coordination with government agencies but one seen by some analysts as fresh evidence of the White House's tightening grip over administration policy.

Under a directive instituted by Chief of Staff Andrew H. Card Jr. at the start of Bush's second term, Cabinet secretaries spend as many as four hours a week working out of an office suite set up for them at the Eisenhower Executive Office Building, adjacent to the White House. There, they meet with presidential policy and communications aides in an effort to better coordinate the administration's initiatives and messages.

"It allows us to work on a much more regular basis with the Cabinet in helping to manage issues," said Claude A. Allen, Bush's domestic policy adviser. "It also helps us lay the groundwork that is going to be necessary to implement the very aggressive agenda that the president has laid out for his second term."

(snip)

One White House official said the policy has caused some consternation among some of the Cabinet secretaries, but the officers publicly defended the new practice. "Having an office and time to work at the White House is a great way to build an effective and cohesive team," Labor Secretary Elaine L. Chao said.

more…
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A14245-2005Mar30.html

[Mountainman]

1. Some won't like this analogy, but it reminds me of when

Hitler moved to his bunker in Berlin.

This is at least a bunker mentality.

[donheld]

5. I think your analogy is spot on

I wish i didn't

[Nothing Without Hope]

7. Yes - that is exactly what I thought when I read it.

It seems very sinister. These are scary days.

[Rex]

2. Stay close to your friends, but closer to your enemies

Rovian physics.

[bobthedrummer]

3. eXecutive bRanch BFEE tactics-this is due to Cheney and the Cheneymen.

It's a cabal, literally.

[AlCzervik]

4. They all seem to travel in packs like wolves or nuns

you never see one alone.

[alcibiades_mystery]

6. I heard he keeps the Postmaster General in a tool shed on the ranch

And calls him the Toolmaster General.

Bush is such an impish card...:eyes:

[Moderator]

8. kick to combine

[rodeodance]

9. Bush Is Keeping Cabinet Secretaries Close to Home (info control)

well, lets all hang around the WH so it looks like we make policy--te he



http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A14245-2005Mar30.html

Bush Is Keeping Cabinet Secretaries Close to Home

Spending Time at White House Required

By Michael A. Fletcher
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, March 31, 2005; Page A01

President Bush is requiring Cabinet members to spend several hours a week at the White House compound, a move top aides say eases coordination with government agencies but one seen by some analysts as fresh evidence of the White House's tightening grip over administration policy.

Under a directive instituted by Chief of Staff Andrew H. Card Jr. at the start of Bush's second term, Cabinet secretaries spend as many as four hours a week working out of an office suite set up for them at the Eisenhower Executive Office Building, adjacent to the White House. There, they meet with presidential policy and communications aides in an effort to better coordinate the administration's initiatives and messages.
"It allows us to work on a much more regular basis with the Cabinet in helping to manage issues," said Claude A. Allen, Bush's domestic policy adviser. "It also helps us lay the groundwork that is going to be necessary to implement the very aggressive agenda that the president has laid out for his second term."

The new practice applies to every Cabinet agency, although the heads of the Defense, State, Homeland Security and Justice departments are required to be at the White House so regularly for meetings that they rarely use the suite, said Erin Healy, a White House spokeswoman. Robert S. Nichols, spokesman for the Treasury Department, said that Secretary John W. Snow was already spending a lot of time at the White House "in large part due to his key role on the president's top domestic priorities, primarily Social Security.".....

[Demeter]

10. Hostages

There's nothing like being held hostage by your own government in order to secure domestic tranquility, etc. (No doubt a chemically induced tranquilizer tranquility). This is one way to prevent whistleblowing!

[Dem2theMax]

11. Wow, FOUR whole hours a week!

They work more than * does! :evilgrin:

[flordehinojos]

12. isn't one of the trademarks of dictators to allow for no independent

thinking? Isn't it true that they demand and exact GROUP THINK which conforms to their own thinking?