Kool-Aid drinkers need not apply

The President, flush with economic success, has decided it is not his policies that need rethinking, but rather his economic team that needs retooling:

Republican officials said Bush's economic team has been weaker than his national security advisers, and that the president believes he needs aides who can relate better to Congress and the markets. A more skilled team is essential, the aides said, because of the complex and politically challenging agenda of overhauling Social Security to add private investment accounts and simplifying the tax code.

Surprisingly, Bush has decided that loyalists would actually do more damage to his attempts at economic reforms and has looked to outsiders for help.

Administration officials would not spell out all the reasons for the changes, but one clue came from the roiling frustration expressed by a senior Republican congressional aide who is eager to help Bush but has found his legislative operation clumsy over the past four years.

"They need people who have not been drinking the Kool-Aid and are going to come up here and say breathlessly, 'This is what the president wants to do, and isn't it great?' " the aide said. "They need someone like a former senator or former member or former governor who can come up here and say, 'This is going to be hard. There's going to be blood on the floor, but it's going to be worth it.' "

Good luck with that.