http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/national/101017_strategy21.shtml
Saturday, December 21, 2002
Politicos stunned by Bush's 'skilled' removal of Trent Lott
President 'extracted' the senator without leaving fingerprints
By ELISABETH BUMILLER
THE NEW YORK TIMES
WASHINGTON -- As President Bush was cheerily shaking the hands of thousands of guests at glittering White House Christmas parties this week, his advisers and influential Republicans were working overtime to jettison Trent Lott as the Senate Republican leader.
One Republican close to the White House who talked to reporters about the troubles Lott was bringing upon the party said yesterday that he had been given careful instructions by top White House officials to "stick to the president's words" -- meaning that he should take his cues from the president's criticism of Lott on Dec. 12 in Philadelphia -- and to "stay out of the story."
That meant critics should remain anonymous when they talked to reporters about Lott, according to this Republican ally of the White House.
By the end of the week, as the White House watched its favorite, Sen. Bill Frist of Tennessee, step up to replace Lott, R-Miss., Washington's political professionals were left stunned and awed. They said that Bush and his powerful political adviser, Karl Rove, had stumbled at times, but still had managed to depose in eight days the unanimously elected Senate leader of their own party.
The president, they said, had reached new levels of political maneuvering and ruthlessness to contain a stain on Republicans that was threatening his own agenda. And he did it without overtly appearing to be behind the effort.
"They've got a skilled surgeon coming in to run the Senate, and they used a surgeon's skill to remove Lott without leaving any fingerprints," said Robert Strauss, the former Democratic National Committee chairman who has been a friend of the Bushes for years. "Whether you agree or disagree with this administration on policy, you have to give the White House tremendous credit for coming to town and after two years having this kind of political performance."
In just eight days, influential Republicans said, the White House used a succession of carefully timed public statements and anonymous, damaging leaks to bring about the resignation of Lott and the ascension of Frist, all while publicly denouncing the leaks and repeatedly expressing the view that the president did not think Lott should resign.
"It was a clean extraction," said James Carville, the Democratic strategist, who is married to Mary Matalin, a top aide to Vice President Dick Cheney.
It was no less than the president himself who began Lott's demise.
Last Thursday in Philadelphia, in a sharp public rebuke, Bush said that comments Lott made on Dec. 5, applauding Sen. Strom Thurmond's presidential run in 1948 "do not reflect the spirit of our country" and that "any suggestion that the segregated past was acceptable or positive is offensive and it is wrong."
Republicans said that the condemnation was the idea of Bush, not of Rove, and that the president was well aware that his words would set in motion a chain of events likely leading to Lott's resignation. Bush -- who began his political education at the side of Lee Atwater, the bad-boy strategist of the first President Bush's successful 1988 campaign -- then immediately ordered his staff to speak no more on the subject.
At that point, Republicans said, no one at the White House had to say a word. "When the president made his statement in Philadelphia, it signaled the White House's view on Lott's continuing as leader," one Republican said. "And it was a strong, unmistakable signal that it would be extraordinarily difficult for Lott to be effective as leader."
The next day, Lott was forced to hold a news conference in Mississippi apologizing for his comments. Bush, meanwhile, headed for a weekend at Camp David and maintained a determined public silence on Lott. Although Ari Fleischer, the White House press secretary, said after Lott's news conference that "the president doesn't think Trent Lott needs to resign" (a line Fleischer repeated all week), not once did the president offer any public support for Lott.
By Sunday, as the influential Washington Sunday morning talk shows went into overdrive with the news that Sen. Don Nickles of Oklahoma had called for his colleagues to consider replacing Lott, Frist's name had already surfaced. It was put forth by Republicans who were in regular contact with the White House.
By Monday, the leaking itself went into overdrive as numerous Republicans from across the country told reporters, always anonymously, that Lott had no chance of remaining as Senate Republican leader and that the White House wanted him out.
The next day, as the White House publicly denounced the leakers, the leaking continued. But now Rove, who was in close contact with Republicans, was described as "monitoring" the situation.
"He's not standing behind the curtain making the smoke come out and when the smoke comes out, some person engineered by him appears," a Republican said.
It was critical, Republicans said, that the White House not be seen as interfering in the Senate, and that any perceived attempts to manipulate a vote were likely to backfire.
By Wednesday, Lott had been fired upon again, this time publicly by two lethal guns. Secretary of State Colin Powell said he "deplored"' the sentiments behind Lott's statement, while Gov. Jeb Bush of Florida, the president's brother, told a Miami Herald reporter that "something's going to have to change. This can't be the topic of conversation over the next week."
By Thursday, Lott appeared doomed when Frist became the first Republican to openly challenge him for his post and important Republicans threw him their support.
Administration officials insisted that they had not encouraged Frist, and had no interest in the outcome of any Senate vote. But Republicans close to the White House said that Frist had long been the president's choice.
