Up until yesterday, things were not looking so good at the White House. A full-scale crisis over Karl Rove's involvement in the leak of a CIA operative's identity appeared to be thriving in a climate of increasingly mistrustful and disapproving public opinion.
But yesterday, the White House pulled itself off the ropes, by staging the kind of grand political theater that only the president of the United States can really carry off.
This is where the Bush White House flourishes: Where it has complete control of the message -- where it sets the agenda, controls the content, masterminds the timing, flummoxes the media and boxes in its critics.
In nominating U.S. Court of Appeals Judge John G. Roberts Jr. for the Supreme Court last night, President Bush used his most bully of pulpits to refocus the nation's attention -- on his terms. And by choosing a nominee less likely than some of the others he was considering to inflame Democrats -- at least right away -- he dominated the news cycle almost without any opposition.
Here is the text of Bush's prime-time announcement, followed by remarks from Roberts. It took place in the White House's Cross Hall, the corridor which runs across the center of the state floor between the East Room and State Dining Room.
It looks to me, from my research, like it was the first time that a president has made such an announcement on evening television in more than 30 years -- since President Richard Nixon nominated William Rehnquist as an associate justice in 1971. Typically, presidents have introduced their nominees during the day, either in the White House briefing room or the Rose Garden -- and typically they have taken a few questions from the press, which Bush most certainly did not.
This morning, Bush met again with Roberts, then paraded him through the Rose Garden. Here's the text of Bush's remarks. This time there were reporters around, but the two men took no questions, and ignored the ones shouted at them as they walked back to the Oval Office.
Bush also had a few words about his nomination in a speech on homeland security in Baltimore today.
Even for those trying to get an insight into the timing of yesterday's decision -- wondering, for instance, how significant a factor the Rove controversy was, or wondering if the White House was behind yesterday's highly infectious rumor that Bush had picked a more moderate woman instead -- there was no place to turn but the White House.
The Tick Tock
Shortly before Bush's announcement, press secretary Scott McClellan and counselor Dan Bartlett generously spoon fed a compelling "tick tock" to the press corps. Here's the text.
It is full of fascinating, if one-sided, details of how Bush arrived at his decision.
It turns out that after an initial round of winnowing, Bush took information on 11 possible nominees with him on his trip to Europe two weeks ago. By last week, he and his aides had narrowed the list to five. And those five were invited to the White House for meetings on Thursday, Friday and Saturday.
