WSJ: Laura Bush Takes a Larger Role (Admin hopes to get lift from Pickles)

http://online.wsj.com/public/article/SB113589800171734179-OpbFZtb3_zmRh1i9rwNZGAE1NRw_20061229.html?mod=tff_main_tff_top

Laura Bush Takes a Larger Role

Administration Hopes for Lift
From First Lady's Popularity


WASHINGTON -- In retooling her staff for her husband's second term, first lady Laura Bush made her wishes clear.

"She was very focused on hiring a chief of staff who understood policy," says former Commerce Secretary Donald Evans, a close friend of the Bush family. The eventual winner, former State Department official and White House hand Anita McBride, was questioned less about the White House social schedule than on whether she could arrange a solo trip to Afghanistan. In March, after weeks of quiet planning, Mrs. Bush and Ms. McBride gave staffers just 24 hours' notice before traveling to Kabul.

At a time when the U.S. is eager to repair its image around the world, the administration has found a willing envoy in Mrs. Bush, who also traveled this year to the Middle East and Africa. While some besieged Bush administration figures are hunkered down, the first lady has assumed a larger role -- and not merely on matters for which first ladies typically draw attention.

...

In one surprising way, Mrs. Bush is an apt emotional complement to her husband. "I'm a crier," Mr. Bush once said.

Mrs. Bush is not. Her composure was on display this summer, when she met in Rwanda with a 13-year-old orphan raising her younger siblings. While the girl's story left staff members in tears, a grim-faced Mrs. Bush rose from her seat, walked to her next stop in a nearby chapel, sat down in a front pew and smiled.