Word: skinners
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...reactive White House where quick reflexes are prized, Skinner became the preferred troubleshooter. He managed the Administration's response to the Exxon Valdez oil spill, the Eastern Air Lines strike, Hurricane Hugo and the 1989 California earthquake. Now Skinner's task is to cut dead weight from the White House staff and reawaken the Administration's dormant domestic policy and public relations operation. His appointment has worried some conservatives, who relied on Sununu to take their side in most fights. But Skinner, who has recently applied his charms to the right, insists that he is "as conservative as any conservative...
There may be nothing Sam Skinner won't do for Bush. During a 1989 G.O.P. fund-raising dinner, a Secret Service agent, careful not to alarm the crowd, inched toward the head table on all fours. He tapped Skinner on the foot and said, "Follow me, sir." Without ado, the Secretary of Transportation got down on his hands and knees and crawled between tables, chairs and legs to the rear of the ballroom, then stepped into a waiting limousine and motored to the White House Situation Room, where he planned the California earthquake cleanup...
Bush finally did something last week -- in fact, several things. He replaced unpopular White House chief of staff John Sununu with Transportation Secretary Samuel Skinner, a likable moderate who has emerged as one of the Administration's smoothest troubleshooters. He appointed a trio of pragmatic political strategists -- Commerce Secretary Robert Mosbacher, pollster Robert Teeter and Republican businessman Fred Malek -- to lead his re-election campaign. Yet before the week ended, two of Bush's advisers publicly disagreed about the wisdom of cutting taxes for the middle class, once again underscoring the divisions within the President's inner circle about...
...inspire confidence in his leadership. At one point Sununu seemed to criticize the President for a remark about high interest rates on credit cards; at another point he accosted a Washington Post reporter at a bill-signing ceremony, shouting, "You're a liar! Everything you write is lies!" Skinner is certain to run a more collegial shop, but unless Bush can make up his mind about what course he should take, the personnel changes will mean little...
...Skinner is a low-key troubleshooter...