White House in Turmoil

Today’s WaPo has an article (a rather delicious one, if I do say so myself) about the mess in which Bush currently finds himself.

With special counsel Patrick J. Fitzgerald driving his CIA leak investigation toward an apparent conclusion, the White House now confronts the looming prospect that no one in the building is eager to address: a Bush presidency without Karl Rove. In a capital consumed by scandal speculation, most White House senior officials are no more privy than outsiders to the prosecutor's intentions. But the surreal silence in the Roosevelt Room each morning belies the nervous discussions racing elsewhere around the West Wing.

[…]

"People are very demoralized and unhappy," a former administration official said. "The leak investigation is [part of it], but things were not happy before this took preeminence. It's just been a rough year. A lot has gotten done, but nothing is easy."

The one thing that isn’t mentioned is the prospect of a Bush presidency without Cheney. Whether this means that Cheney’s fairly certain he’s in the clear, or is further evidence of a falling out between Bush and Cheney (as in, Bush doesn’t care if his second is forced to hit the road), or isn’t indicative of anything at all, I have no idea.

After five years of speculation that Cheney is basically the foreign policy president and Rove is basically the domestic policy president, however, it’s an interesting possibility we face that one or both of our acting presidents may not be long for the Beltway world.