Can He Fix It?

(4 of 5)
After Ridge tried and failed to push through his border-control merger, Bush warmed to the idea of taking on the bureaucracies directly by creating the new Homeland Security department to pick off some of their functions. "Let's take something away from all of them," he told aides. The White House is now practically boasting about the tangle Ridge got into trying to reorganize one single branch of the varicose Homeland Security structure. "When Tom Ridge had to call a meeting, he needed a conference room," says Hughes. "There were so many different people."

Bush's 24-page reform plan aims to "enhance operational efficiencies" and encourage "better asset utilization." To win support for his plan, Bush has to convince Congress that the bureaucracy we have now is part of the problem--while allaying fears that the vast new one he's proposing won't make things even worse.

3 DO IT IN SECRET

Bush doesn't like surprises--unless he's the one doing the surprising. Unlike Clinton, who held freewheeling all-nighters when he had to make an important policy decision, Bush prefers to keep his thoughts to himself, letting only top aides in on his plans. He forbids White House leaks, which enable interested parties to meddle, prepare their reactions and disrupt the Administration's scripted agenda. Following Bush's instructions, says a senior White House aide, chief of staff Card "likes to get a small group of people in the room and keep it very quiet."

Bush's zeal for secrecy was on full display last week--and it irritated the people he now needs to pass his plan. Capitol Hill was left completely out of the loop. Before the speech, the White House kept its plan under wraps as aides fanned out to test elements of the proposal on informal focus groups. At a dinner party thrown by Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld early this month, deputy chief of staff Josh Bolten asked guests what they thought about giving Cabinet status to the Homeland Security office. Most of the guests opposed the idea, as they believed the President still did.

4 GO SLOW; THINK BIG

Bush often laments his father's reluctance to wield the power of the presidency to accomplish his objectives. But in his first 18 months in office, the son has shown a similar proclivity for prudence. Bush holds off on using his clout until the facts are in and he can close the deal. And once a plan is in place, he doesn't tinker. In some cases, that has proved a virtue: he didn't rush the bombing in Afghanistan and stayed the course when the battle plan stalled in October. "He runs the presidency on his own timetable," aides like to say.

And yet Bush's cautious management style sometimes leads to procrastination. Critics say he waits too long, resisting change until the last possible moment. Last week he placed his first phone calls to the leaders of India and Pakistan since the current standoff between the two nuclear-armed nations heated up in mid-May. The proposal to give Homeland Security Cabinet rank came after months of White House resistance. On March 19, White House spokesman Ari Fleischer declared that "creating a new Cabinet post doesn't solve anything."

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