Moving On Up, to Brussels

By Michael Abramowitz
Monday, April 28, 2008

It happens in the eighth year of every two-term presidential administration: A bright young aide who has worked himself or herself up from a modest staff job gets rewarded with a plum assignment that might ordinarily go to a graybeard.

So Kristen L. Silverberg, who got her start in the administration in 2001 as an assistant to then-deputy chief of staff Joshua M. Bolten, was named last week to serve out the term -- and possibly beyond -- as the U.S. ambassador to the European Union in Brussels, the White House announced last week.

Silverberg, 37, a onetime clerk for Justice Clarence Thomas, has been working as assistant secretary of state for international organizations. She also worked for such administration luminaries as then-senior adviser Karl Rove and then-chief of staff Andrew H. Card Jr., and did a stint in Iraq.

Her appointment might also help resolve a long-standing White House dispute with the Senate over the E.U. post. Bush's nomination of C. Boyden Gray was blocked by Senate Democrats, some of whom were infuriated by Gray's leading the campaign for some of the president's conservative judicial appointments.

Bush then installed Gray as ambassador in a recess appointment. When the recess appointment ended early this year, he sent the veteran Washington lawyer back to Brussels as a senior envoy, a post that did not require Senate confirmation. While the Senate is not usually interested in confirming last-minute political appointees, the word is that Democrats may make an exception for Silverberg -- if only to get Gray out of Brussels as soon as possible.

Homeland Security Transitioning

We caught up briefly last week with Kenneth L. Wainstein, another long-time administration worker bee who is ending up the term as homeland security adviser to the president. Wainstein, the former U.S. attorney for the District, has held a variety of posts at the FBI and Justice Department; he took over last month from Frances Fragos Townsend in the job Bush created to coordinate federal efforts to protect the country from terrorist attacks.

As Wainstein tells it, one of his biggest assignments from Bush has been to prepare for the transition to the new president -- for example, to make sure the new team understands fully the procedures for dealing with a terrorist attack or natural disaster. This is no small matter given the confusion inside the White House and federal bureaucracy on Sept. 11, 2001.

"We have to do everything we can to make sure the transition goes without a hiccup," said Wainstein, 46. "The president has made it clear to me . . . that we have to really put a focus on the fact that we have things lined up to hand over to the next administration."

Toward that end, Wainstein said he expects threat briefings will be offered to the presidential candidates, probably after the conventions, to give a more granular sense of what he or she will be confronting in January.

One open question is whether the next president will keep in place the structure that Bush created after Sept. 11, in particular the Homeland Security Council, an analogue to the National Security Council for coordinating the interagency handling of counterterrorism activities. The full council, including the president and Cabinet secretaries, meets half a dozen times a year, though there are many other lower-level meetings of principals and deputies.

While there has been debate over whether the Homeland Security Council overlaps with the National Security Council, Wainstein thinks there is plenty for the former to coordinate without getting in the way of the NSC -- from defending the borders and immigration issues to dealing with biohazards, potential attacks on chemical facilities and responding to natural disasters.

"One thing I have found since I have come in here is the original wisdom behind creating a homeland security council still applies," said Wainstein.

He says he spends "quite a bit of time" with Bush on the issues in his portfolio, and notes the president stopped by to say hi to his three young daughters, who were visiting on Take Your Daughter to Work Day last week. "He sat down, told them they were beautiful and lit them up," he said. "They floated out."

Khalilzad, the Running Man?

In Washington last week to speak at the German Marshall Fund, U.S. ambassador to the United Nations Zalmay Khalilzad did not sound exactly Shermanesque in knocking down the persistent rumor that he is interested in running for president of his native Afghanistan next year. Khalilzad, a former White House aide who has held some of the toughest and most sensitive diplomatic posts during the Bush administration, laughed when a questioner asked what it would take to get him to launch his candidacy.

"I have not come here to collect money for my campaign," Khalilzad joked before adding: "I have said repeatedly -- I find this a little surprising that this persists -- that I am not a candidate, I am not planning to be a candidate, whichever way I have to say this, for the president of Afghanistan."

"Zal," as he is known to his friends, said he has a "different trajectory" for his life, and the next step will be working in the private sector, where he expects to be helping Afghanistan and Iraq.

Israel Trip Taking Shape

The schedule is coming into focus for President Bush's second trip to the Middle East this year: He is planning to visit Israel next month to celebrate the country's 60th anniversary. While in Israel, Bush appears likely to visit Masada, the desert fortress overlooking the Dead Sea where nearly 1,000 Jews committed suicide in the 1st century rather than be taken alive by the Romans.

He is also planning a speech to the Israeli Knesset, and will attend a giant celebratory conference being hosted by Israeli President Shimon Peres that is expected to feature such notables as Tony Blair, Mikhail Gorbachev and Henry Kissinger. But Barbra Streisand, the liberal singing and acting icon who had been tapped to sing the Jewish prayer "Avinu Malkeinu" (Our Father Our King), abruptly pulled out last week for "personal obligations." Was Babs unhappy about the prospect of sharing the bill with Bush? We will never know.

Bush also plans to meet the other parties in the long-standing Arab-Israeli dispute, including Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas in a session at Sharm el-Sheikh. He also plans a stop in Saudi Arabia to meet King Abdullah.

Abbas does not appear to be in a positive frame of mind about the U.S. efforts to help broker an agreement before the end of Bush's term, as judged by his comments before leaving Washington last week after meeting with the president. "So far nothing has been achieved," Abbas told the Associated Press.

Coming Up Short

During a stop Friday at the Boys and Girls Club in Hartford, Conn., to commemorate World Malaria Day, the children told Bush that they were raising money to fight malaria in the developing world. The head of the most powerful nation in the world, however, found himself light in the wallet. "I'm running short of cash," Bush said a bit sheepishly, then turned to the cameras with a grin: "Congress controls the purse strings." Bush's malaria coordinator, retired Navy Rear Adm. Tim Ziemer, came to the rescue, plopping what appeared to be a pair of twenties into a collection basket.