Window Dressing

Josh Bolton's sunshine policy:

A White House long accused of squelching internal dissent and ignoring outside viewpoints has been reaching out in its moment of weakness to prominent figures who have disagreed with the president. Bush just hired a Treasury secretary who opposed his policy on global warming and a press secretary who dismissed his domestic agenda as timid and listless.

How much such moves reflect a genuine opening up for an insular White House remains uncertain. Symbolically, at least, the White House is eager to rebut the longstanding public impression of a president in a bunker listening only to like-minded advisers. Substantively, Bush has hardly signaled a major course change in the direction of his presidency, and skeptics recall past instances when nonconformists within the administration were shut out.

So what?

So long as DeFib Dick Cheney still operates in the shadows all of this is meaningless. Which reduces Bolton's new openness to a PR excersize.

ADDED: Kevin is as unimpressed as I am.


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