Bush II Cabinet: the shuffle and shape of things to come

The arrival of tough guy Bernard Kerik, former New York City police commissioner, at Homeland Security will reinforce the macho wartime tone of Defense Secretary Rumsfeld. And though Mr. Kerik will be new to Washington (assuming Senate confirmation) he is not new to Bush, having campaigned for the president's reelection.

The possibility that Bush will place Mark McClellan at the head of Health and Human Services reinforces the loyalty theme. A Texas native, Mr. McClellan is currently administrator of the Medicare and Medicaid programs and the brother of Bush's press secretary, Scott McClellan.

This will also be no B-team cabinet, says Michael Franc, vice president of government relations at the Heritage Foundation. The president has promised big initiatives for his second term and "that is a very attractive inducement to come and serve," says Mr. Franc.

The biggest question mark remains who will spearhead Bush's economic policy initiatives at the Treasury Department, if, as expected, Secretary Snow leaves. Throughout his tenure, Bush has not had forceful spokespeople on economic policy, but will need them as he seeks to bring along public opinion and Congress in trying to introduce private accounts into Social Security and overhaul the tax code, analysts say.

Last Thursday, the White House announced a summit meeting for Dec. 15 and 16 to set the table for these and other initiatives in health care, the legal system, and education. The conference could be seen as a public-relations effort, but observers note that a similar summit, attended by top administration officials and outsiders, held in the summer of 2002, did lay the groundwork for tax cuts.

With new names still expected for Bush's economic team, including a new director for the White House's National Economic Council and a new chair for the Council of Economic Advisers, the White House also has yet to put forth names for its promised advisory panel on tax reform, which it promised to do by the end of the year.

Whether this panel or next week's summit will have actual significance remains to be seen. But it's clear that time is of the essence. Though reelection is no longer an issue for the president, it is eternally thus for Congress.

"Clearly the things that they have to do, work out the details of the Social Security proposal and of the tax reform, have to be done pretty quickly," says Stephen Hess of the Brookings Institution and a former speechwriter in the Eisenhower White House. "They should have those very much in place to present to Congress by April I would say - certainly May."

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