White House Chief of Staff Josh Bolten said Sunday that the ongoing shake-up in the West Wing is “a chance for us to get our mojo back” and hinted there will be more personnel changes.
“We have a couple of more posts to fill,” Bolten told “Fox News Sunday” in his first interview since taking the job two weeks ago.
Bolten took over for Andy Card and moved quickly to replace White House Press Secretary Scott McClellan with conservative commentator Tony Snow.
Bolten called the shake-up “an opportunity for the White House to step back, refresh, re-energize at a time when we?re 5 1/2 years into an administration ? normally a slow point, a low point, in many administrations ? and a chance for us to get our mojo back, to go back more on the offensive.”
The new chief of staff dismissed talk of a “Bolten bounce,” the notion that his appointment will cause a jump in President Bush?s record-low job approval ratings. He cautioned that he cannot do “very much” to improve the numbers.
“It?s not about me,” Bolten said. “It?s about me giving the president the most effective operation he can have.”
To that end, Bolten said he hopes Snow can create “a more open environment to the press.” Ironically, that might entail barring cameras from the White House press briefing room in an effort to curb journalistic posturing and raise the level of discourse.
“That will be Tony Snow?s first test to see what kind of power player he really is and whether he?s able to establish the right kind of relationship with the press that we need going forward,” Bolten said.
He added that the banning of cameras might hurt press relations in the short term, but improve them in the long run. The decision will be left to Snow.
In an interview with The Examiner, Snow said he hopes that he can convince reporters “to revisit their impressions of the president and to take a sort of wider view of what he?s doing and why.”
He predicted that reporters would be more fair if they are given more access to Bush.
“I have never seen a case in which somebody became more hostile to someone else, as a general rule, by getting to know them better,” Snow told The Examiner. “You?ve been around the president. People who?ve been around him love being around him. They love the personality; they love his energy and zest.”
