Office Politics

When Josh Bolten took over as President Bush's chief of staff almost five months ago, there was some talk of his cleaning house.

But I've just updated my White House Floor Plan , and the fact is that Bolten's West Wing looks a lot like Andrew Card's -- with a few notable exceptions.

For instance, as soon as he took over, Bolten not only relieved senior adviser Karl Rove of his policy portfolio but of his office. Deputy chief of staff Joel Kaplan got Rove's spacious digs, while Rove moved across the hall into a windowless space formerly occupied by his assistant, Susan Ralston. Ralston got former adviser Mike Gerson's smaller office next door.

Among other moves, press secretary Tony Snow took over Scott McClellan's old spot, and moved Dana Perino and Josh Deckard up from the lower press office. Jared Weinstein recently took over from Blake Gottesman as the guy the president summons when he wants a breath mint.

There are four new senior aides on the second floor: Kevin Sullivan replaced Nicole Wallace as communications director; Liza Wright now oversees presidential appointments instead of Dina Powell; Deb Fiddelke replaced Doug Badger as legislative affairs deputy; and domestic policy adviser Karl Zinsmeister now occupies the office that belonged to Claude Allen until he resigned to face shoplifting charges.

And speechwriter Bill McGurn moved from a room with no view into the much more inspiring office occupied by Hillary Clinton in the last administration, then Karl Rove until he moved downstairs.

Welcome Print Readers

Today's column coincides with the publication of the White House map on the Federal Page in the print edition of The Washington Post. Welcome, Washington Post newspaper readers! For those of you who haven't visited before: White House Briefing is a spirited review of media and blog coverage about the president and his staff. It appears on the washingtonpost.com home page every weekday around mid-day. Scroll through some of my recent columns if you have some time. The latest column always appears at this URL: washingtonpost.com/whbriefing .

Poll Watch

Carl Hulse and Marjorie Connelly write in the New York Times: "Americans increasingly see the war in Iraq as distinct from the fight against terrorism, and nearly half believe President Bush has focused too much on Iraq to the exclusion of other threats, according to the latest New York Times/CBS News poll.

"The poll found that 51 percent of those surveyed saw no link between the war in Iraq and the broader antiterror effort, a jump of 10 percentage points since June. That increase comes despite the regular insistence of Mr. Bush and Congressional Republicans that the two are intertwined and should be seen as complementary elements of a strategy to prevent domestic terrorism. . . .

"Mr. Bush recorded a gain of four percentage points in how the public views his handling of terrorism, rising to 55 percent approval from 51 percent a week earlier. This was his highest approval rating on the issue since last summer and followed the arrests in Britain in a suspected terror plot to blow up airliners.

"Mr. Bush's overall standing was nevertheless unchanged from the previous week, with 57 percent disapproving and 36 percent approving, far below the level Republicans in Congress would like to see as they prepare for elections in November."

Here are the complete results .