After Rep. Rahm Emanuel of Illinois today agreed to become Barack Obama's White House chief of staff, praise came from an unexpected quarter.
Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, who was at John McCain's side almost every day of the 2008 general election campaign, negotiated the details of the presidential debates with Emanuel, representing Obama.
This is a wise choice by President-elect Obama. Rahm knows Capitol Hill and has great political skills. He can be a tough partisan but also understands the need to work together....
I worked closely with him during the presidential debate negotiations, which were completed in record time. When we hit a rough spot, he always looked for a path forward. I consider Rahm to be a friend and colleague. He's tough but fair. Honest, direct, and candid. These qualities will serve President-elect Obama well.
Toughness is the quality cited most often by presidential scholars -- and several former occupants of the position -- in describing what matters in a White House chief of staff.
Dick Cheney, chief of staff to President Gerald Ford, has developed something of a reputation for toughness himself as vice president to George W. Bush.
But Cheney told political scientist Martha Kumar in 2001 that organization was the key to being White House chief of staff. In an interview for the Presidency Research Group, for which Kumar spoke to 80 former White House staffers, Cheney said:
His reach, his ability to sort of guide and direct the government, to interact with the Cabinet, to deal effectively with the Congress, to manage his relationship with the press, all of those are key ingredients to his success.
Pennsylvania Avenue in front of the White House has become a jumble of construction equipment and fencing in anticipation of the assembly of a reviewing stand for the parade marking Barack Obama's inauguration as president on Jan. 20.
But this sign could signal not just the immediate danger at the construction site, but -- as President Bush could attest -- the turmoil, political brickbats and diplomatic contretemps that inevitably befall any chief executive residing here.
Bill Clinton got a $15-million advance to write his memoir, "My Life." And he was a president who'd been impeached for an embarrassing dalliance in the Oval Office.
For one thing, he's not known as an introspective guy given to self-criticism, seen as key to sales.
"I think any success will depend to a very large extent on [the content of] the book," said Peter Osnos, founder of PublicAffairs, which published former Bush press secretary Scott McClellan's tough take on the White House.
For another, foreign rights would be unlikely.
"President Bush is perceived as a unilateral cowboy who didn't respect other nations," said Jonathan Karp, whose Hachette Book Group published "Hard Call," Republican John McCain's latest book. "So there's a shortfall overseas."
Mostly, because his reputation, like Harry S. Truman's, may require a few decades to appreciate. Truman, the haberdasher from Independence, Mo., who became president on Franklin Delano Roosevelt's death in 1945, left office in 1953 as unpopular as Bush is now. His own memoir, a two-volume affair published in the 1950s, is little remembered. It was only in the 1990s, when David McCullough wrote his bestselling "Truman," that the pugnacious accidental president became an admired figure.
"Only in hindsight will history show whether Bush is deemed to be a good president who sacrificed his presidency for what he believed in or whether history judges him to be a failed president," said Marji Ross, president of the conservative Regnery Publishing, which, given its conservative audience, is in the market for books critical of President-elect Barack Obama.
Still, says Karp, if Bush is interested in penning his own version of history, he should consider it.
"Maybe only 30% of the public is still behind him," said Karp. "But 30% of 300 million people is not a small number."
It was a spontaneous eruption of civic joy, an unrehearsed decision by more than 1,000 to gather in front of the White House last night to celebrate the historic election of Barack Obama, the nation's first black president.
Young people made up the majority of the crowd and there were lots of parents pushing strollers. One woman came from Virginia with her husband and three children, to share a rare moment of history. She told Voice of America:
I came to the White House because there was nowhere else I could be to celebrate this moment. We live 20 miles from here and we jumped in the car when [Obama clinched]. I just couldn't imagine being anywhere else.
Car horns blared. Secret Service agents, who in the last eight years have had to hold off crowds protesting the war in Iraq or the $700-billion bailout package, simply opened their cellphones and took photos. All the while, the crowd shouted, "Obama! Obama!" and "Yes we can! Yes we can!"
Inside, President Bush, who famously likes to be in bed by 10 p.m. (Oops...an earlier post said 10 a.m. Thanks to our readers for catching!) and whose own popularity rating is at historic lows, must have marveled.
-- Johanna Neuman
Photo credits: Lawrence Jackson / Associated Press
President Bush, who kept a public silence on the race to succeed him in the closing days of the campaign, called Barack Obama seven minutes after the Associated Press projected that the Democratic senator would win the presidency.
The president called John McCain 26 minutes later, after McCain conceded defeat.
In a brief e-mailed statement, White House Press Secretary Dana Perino said Bush spoke with Obama at 11:12 p.m. EST.
According to Perino's message, Bush said:
Mr. President-elect, congratulations to you. What an awesome night for you, your family and your supporters. Laura and I called to congratulate you and your good bride.
I promise to make this a smooth transition. You are about to go on one of the great journeys of life. Congratulations and go enjoy yourself.
She said Bush invited Obama and his family "to visit the White House soon, at their convenience."
Perino said Bush told McCain:
John, you gave it your all. I'm proud of you, and I'm sorry it didn't work out. You didn't leave anything on the playing field.
Your statement was fabulous and very classy. Please give our love to Cindy.
Both calls were made from the Treaty Room, the president's office in the White House residence, Perino said.
She said Bush would speak in the Rose Garden at 7:40 a.m. PST on Wednesday.
When the sun comes up on the White House Wednesday morning, tourists will gawk through the gate and a new administration will be planning its transition to power.
But Tuesday night, President Bush and First Lady Laura Bush spent their last election night in the White House. It was billed as a quiet evening, with some friends and staffers invited to dinner to watch the election returns and celebrate Mrs. Bush's birthday.
At the start of the dinner, said White House Press Secretary Dana Perino, the president gave a toast. He thanked those present for all they had done during his eight years in office, and for their friendship. Then he said, "And may God bless whoever wins tonight."
Bush appreciates today's vivid demonstration of "the strength of our country and democracy," Perino said, and he is committed to a transition "that is as smooth as possible."
Later, after it was clear that Barack Obama was going to be the 44th president of the United States, Bush called the Illinois senator. offered his congratulations and invited the Obama family to the White House.
For her birthday I'd like to send her something new, fresh, youthful and energetic: A president named Barack Obama. Laura Bush has a lot of class, and I'm sure she will appreciate it.
No word yet on what President Bush is getting the first lady for her last birthday in the White House. (Actually we got word late at night that he gave her a pair of what press secretary Dana Perino described as "a pair of beautiful earrings.") But Mrs. Bush herself hinted that she was looking forward to a new president, or at least to the end of the presidential campaign. In a speech the other day, she made reference to all the times during the campaign that Obama tried to tie John McCain to the Bush White House. At a Kentucky campaign stop, she said:
I'm really looking forward to election day, partly because it seems like George has been on the ticket this entire year.
Press secretary Sally McDonough says that the president and Mrs. Bush have invited friends and senior staff to join them for dinner on election night. And, in celebration of her birthday, they'll have coconut birthday cake for dessert.
With less than three months left in the Bush administration, the battle over protecting two vast areas of the Pacific Ocean from fishing and mineral exploitation is raging as if the president's legacy depended on it.
Which, actually, it does.
On one side is first lady Laura Bush, who according to the Washington Post has asked for two briefings on the issue from the White House staff, and has asked her aides to confer with scientists on how to preserve diverse ecosystems.
On the other side is Vice President Dick Cheney, who along with some officials in the Northern Mariana Islands argues that banning fishing and mineral exploration will hurt the region's economy.
"It's hard, but it should be," said James L. Connaughton, chairman of the White House Council on Environmental Quality. "These are big, consequential, national decisions that have international ramifications."
In August, President Bush told several federal agencies to begin working on a plan so that he could create two "marine conservation management areas" in the Northern Mariana Islands, a U.S. commonwealth between Japan and Guam. That move -- if it happens -- would greatly expand Bush's environmental legacy, adding vast territory to the 140,000 miles he designated for protection in the northwestern Hawaiian Islands in 2006.
It would also protect blue sharks like the one above from shark finning, the practice of removing the dorsal fin from sharks for such Asian delicacies as shark fin soup. According to the National Marine Fisheries Service, hundreds of thousands of finned sharks are incidentally caught by fishermen chasing swordfish and tuna in the waters off Hawaii, Guam, American Samoa and the Northern Mariana Islands.
-- Johanna Neuman
Photo: National Marine Fisheries Service / Associated Press
George W. Bush likes to say that you can't read too much into public opinion polls. And who can blame him. He was elected president not once but twice.
Still, today's new numbers -- in a poll conducted from Friday through Sunday -- must come as a blow. His numbers are at the low end of the graph above, which is pollster.com's average of all the major polls.
As Americans are turning out to the polls in record numbers, Bush's approval rating, according to the latest CBS News tracking poll, has dipped to 20%, the lowest ever recorded for a president. His disapproval rating of 72% matches his all-time high, reached last month.
The same poll, taken on the eve of a historic election, found that Republican John McCain had gained some ground on Democrat Barack Obama but that Obama maintains a comfortable, 51%-42% spread over McCain among likely voters, with 5% undecided and a plus-or-minus error rate of 3%.
There were no lines. No finicky touch screens. There was no voting booth.
Just a cleared desk on Oct. 24 as President Bush filled out his ballot in the Oval Office and dispatched it to Texas. White House Press Secretary Dana Perino said he did, indeed, vote for Republican John McCain.
It was symbolic of a quiet election season for a president who grew up in a political family, the grandson of a senator, the son of a member of Congress and president and, on his mother's side, the descendant of a president, Franklin Pierce.
Since endorsing McCain eight months ago, Bush has been seen with him only once -- and that was in passing at an airport in Arizona in late May. He spent the weekend before the election at Camp David, Md. His White House schedule Monday and today was clear of any public events.
His presence on the campaign trail was not welcome.
James Gerstenzang and Johanna Neuman are reporters in The Times' Washington bureau. Between the two of them, they have covered the White House, diplomacy, military affairs, the environment, international economics, trade and Congress. They have both spent time in Crawford, Texas.
