Shakeup Urged For Bush Staff

A former high-ranking Republican has made calls to the White House, urging President Bush's chief of staff to hire a new adviser, CBS News has learned.

Former Senate majority leader Howard Baker phoned the White House Tuesday and sent a direct message to chief of staff Andrew Card, reports CBS News correspondent Gloria Borger.

Baker's mission: to get Card to hire former Tennessee senator Fred Thompson, now an actor who appears on the TV series "Law And Order," as a top adviser as a way to inject some "new blood" to the mix. Baker, also a former Tennessee senator, tells CBS, "I did not recommend firing anyone, just adding a new face."

Baker is not new to crisis management at the White House. In 1987, he was brought in by Ronald Reagan as chief of staff to restore order after the Iran-Contra scandal.

Mr. Bush's job approval remains at an all-time low of 34 percent in the latest CBS News poll. Sixty-six percent of Americans say the country is on the wrong track, a five-point jump since January. His own Republicans on Capitol Hill have been in open revolt over issues ranging from Katrina to the Harriet Miers Supreme Court nomination to the Dubai ports controversy.

But Borger tells The Early Show's Harry Smith that Baker's suggestion was passed on to the president who said, in effect, thanks very much for the advice, but we are not taking it.

On Wednesday, The White House dismissed reports that its senior staff is tired and that some Republicans believe changes are in order, CBS News correspondent Peter Maer reports.

Mr. Bush's spokesman defended the White House staff as "a smart, capable and experienced team" in the face of rising complaints from Republicans about administration mistakes.

White House press secretary Scott McClellan said he was "tired of some of the questions" about whether Mr. Bush is going to replace some senior advisers. "The president has a great team and he appreciates the job that they're doing," McClellan said.

That doesn't stop this Baker's phone call from seeming like a catalyst in a quiet storm of Internet rumblings. Borger said on The Early Show that conservatives might be hushed about the possibility of a shakeup, but they are saying "something's got to happen here."

Republicans are nervous about Mr. Bush's declining approval ratings and a string of White House woes. They include the administration's fumbled handling of Hurricane Katrina; an uproar over a secret eavesdropping program; unhappiness about Iraq; opposition to the now-abandoned Dubai ports deal; the failed nomination of Harriet Miers to the Supreme Court, and Bush's failure to achieve the centerpiece of his domestic agenda, an overhaul of Social Security.

The Republican concern is heightened by anxiety over the midterm congressional elections in November when all 435 seats in the House of Representatives and 33 seats in the 100 member Senate will be up for grabs.

Senior Republicans have fretted for months that Mr. Bush's team is exhausted and has run out of fresh ideas after more than five years on the job with little change in his inner circle. At a Southern Republican Leadership Conference last week, some delegates said they were shaken by the White House's performance and suggested Bush may need a new team.

Republican Sen. Norm Coleman, who has close ties to Mr. Bush, added momentum to shake-up rumors, saying in an Associated Press interview, "I have some concerns about the team that's around the president. I think you need to take a look at it."

"All of a sudden we're hearing the phrase 'tin ear,"' Coleman said. "That's a phrase you shouldn't hear. The fact that you're hearing it says that the kind of political sensitivity, the ear-to-the-ground that you need in the White House, isn't there at the level that it needs to be."

White House officials say Mr. Bush does not plan major changes, other than routine personnel matters. Two senior officials have resigned recently: Interior Secretary Gale Norton and Claude Allen, the president's domestic policy adviser. He has been charged with theft for allegedly receiving phony refunds at department stores.

Unlike during Ronald Reagan's huge second term staff shake-up, after the Iran-Contra scandal, Borger said it's unexpected for Mr. Bush to take such drastic steps.

"Ronald Reagan historians now say treated his staff like hired hands. They were very much interchangeable, coming and going," Borger said. "George Bush's inner circle ... they are family."

Mr. Bush's job approval has dipped to 37 percent, his lowest rating in the AP-Ipsos Poll. Nearly 70 percent of people say the U.S. is on the wrong track, a six-point jump since February. Mr. Bush's job approval among Republicans plummeted from 82 percent in February to 74 percent, a troubling sign for the White House in an election year.

Mr. Bush's personal image also has declined, according to a poll released Wednesday by the Pew Research Center. Until now, the most frequently offered word to describe Bush was "honest," but now the word most often associated with the president is "incompetent," the survey said.

McClellan bristled at questions about a shake-up.

"The president has a smart, capable and experienced team that is fully committed to helping him advance his agenda and get things done for the American people," the spokesman said, noting that Bush was devoting part of his day to talking about health care and prescription drug benefits for seniors.