Downstairs, Condoleezza Rice’s office is designed for the national security adviser to receive foreign dignitaries. But on a bookshelf in one corner there is a football helmet, hinting at the passion for sports she shares with her boss. Top strategist Karl Rove has a more utilitarian office across the way that, at least the day I saw it, was stacked with papers full of graphs, charts, polls-numbers everywhere. Last week, chief of staff Andy Card gave a joint interview to the three news-magazine correspondents. The conversation, of course, was interesting. But so was Card’s office. Formal, spacious and slightly impersonal, it says more about the stature of the job than the man. Located right around the corner from the Oval Office, a main decoration is a portrait of a young Abe Lincoln with what looked like a Civil War sword hanging below it.
As if he saw my scanning eyes, Card went behind his desk and pulled out a collection of photos he had been given recently. The photos were of himself and Sen. John Breaux-who played a key role in negotiating President Bush’s tax-cut bill. The pictures were taken while the two men were in a holding room before going on the TV program “Face the Nation.” As they waited in the green room, they bargained over the bill. “We were passing little bits of paper back and forth,” Card said, chuckling.
Card has always been a behind-the-scenes guy. He has been a fixture in Washington politics for decades, working for Ronald Reagan and George Bush I. Yet he is still little known. Hughes gets recognized in the grocery store; during presidential trips, people often want to snap her picture. Rove probably has had more stories written about him than anyone except Bush himself. Rice-for all her attempts to stay behind the scenes-can’t avoid attention. She’ll soon appear in Vogue.
But Card can still walk down most streets unrecognized. And he doesn’t get much ink. He seems to relish this quiet role-in part because the Calvinist from Boston gets more done that way. In fact, one of his jobs seems to be squashing potential rivalries in the West Wing. At a staff meeting a few months ago, he warned top aides not to get jealous about each others’ press attention.
When I started covering the White House six months ago, a colleague who had been around awhile gave me some advice. “Bureaucracy is power,” he said. He’s right. In watching the White House, it’s important to note who attends what meetings-and where they sit. Who controls access to what and whom the president sees and hears. The questions always seem to lead me back to Andy Card-the steady, unassuming presence who is always at the president’s side.
He was with Bush a few weeks ago for the president’s meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin, for example. In his matter-of-fact way, Card told us last week that he was struck by Putin’s small stature and his Scandinavian looks. The Russian president was fit and had a hard handshake, Card said. “I have dealt with a lot of Russian leaders-or Soviet leaders. [Putin] was different…. His eyes were more inviting than some Russian eyes I’ve looked into.”
Part of Card’s job is to read people. He is the gateway to the president. He passes messages to Bush-and from him. It was Card, for example, who let one cabinet secretary know that the president felt his entourage was too large. And it was Card who gave Bush the news that Vermont Sen. Jim Jeffords planned to leave the Republican party. It was also Card who told the president directly that he needed to slow down during his talks with foreign leaders to let the translator catch up. “Dealing with other world leaders taught him to be a more patient listener,” Card said, laughing.
Like the president, Card relies a lot on humor. When we asked him whether Putin’s English was good enough to understand Bush during their “walk in the woods” in Slovenia, Card made fun of Bush’s language skills. “We were all joking that maybe [Bush’s] English wasn’t good enough. Which one had the syll-ABLE?” Card said, mispronouncing “syllable.” Card gets grief for his still heavy Massachusetts accent. In our interview, he explained that Rice was “drarwing” on her expertise during the visit with Putin.
Card himself is a great listener. He recounted the exchange last week between Putin and Bush when they first met. President Bush was disarming in his greeting. “Good to see you,” the president said to Putin, who told Bush that he had just been watching a movie about him on the way over. Later Bush wondered what movie Putin could have been watching, and the staff teased that it had been a KGB video. “I know you played rugby,” Putin told Bush, which Card thought was a rather obscure fact for the Russian leader to know. Bush then set the stage for a private discussion later by saying, “I read your book, and I have something I want to talk about when we’re alone.” Card probably knows what it was, but he isn’t saying.
He has what all good chiefs of staff have to have-especially in this White House: loyalty. Card not only knows how to be discreet but he knows how to “fall on the grenade,” as Bush II once instructed his father’s adviser, Lee Atwater, to do. Bush I knows that Card is a stand-up guy; Card worked for him as deputy chief of staff under John Sununu. In fact, it was Bush I who promoted Card for the job and Bush I who called Card and urged him to take it.
“I told Andy he has the potential to be the second-best chief of staff in history,” Sununu told me, only half jokingly referring to himself as the best. There is no job description for chief of staff, but those who have held the job describe it as “javelin catcher” because you put yourself between the president and the spears. “Everything good that happens, the president gets credit. Everything bad that happens, the chief of staff gets the blame,” Sununu says.
What the Bush clan loves about Andy (no one calls him Andrew or Mr. Card) is that he willingly takes the blame. That was clear last week in our interview. When asked about mistakes the administration made in its handling of the Kyoto Treaty, Card started to say, “We did not serve …” Then he quickly corrected himself. “I did not serve the president well in the way the decision over CO2 rolled out.”
Just because he’s self-effacing, however, doesn’t mean he’s a pushover. While always genial, he took us to task occasionally in our interview. He told one reporter, “You’re not telling the whole story.” He criticized-however politely-the way we asked some questions. “Those comparisons are all phony,” he said in response to questioning about polling numbers. To one of my questions he told me I was projecting Machiavellian motives and said, “I think you are making a bigger deal out of it than you have to.”
“We would be in bumper cars if we were paranoid about our polls,” Card insisted. “The president knows where he is going.” If Bush is lucky, Andy Card will hang around to help steer him.
