There is no intent in my proposal to remove politics from the White House or from the Executive Branch. Good policy decisions must be politically informed decisions, or the policy will go nowhere (e.g. 1993 Clinton health plan). The President needs good political advisors. The question I present is whether these advisors and other political appointees ought to work only for the President as chief executive of the United States or also for the President as head of a political party. Should they wear one hat or two?
The point about the email of Karl Rove and others is precisely the type of thing I am talking about. Wear two hats and have two email accounts, two Blackberries, two cell phones, two fax machines, two sets of lawyers etc. means you will have many problems. It does not matter how hard you try to keep the official and the political party work separate, One will always spill over into the other. Put away the political party gadgets and stick to official work, and life will be easier. The political party will be an outside constituency, and an important one, but you will not work for the political party as well as for the government.
Defining appropriate and inappropriate political activity is not an easy task, but for purposes of this discussion we should look at some of the lines the law has already drawn. Nowhere, it should be noted, does the law seek to require that policy decisions in any agency