Traitor or Truthteller?

Are you still a Republican?
I don't know what my future plans are. There are a number of Republican ideas I like, a number of Democratic ideas I like. What's most important to me is contributing in some small way to changing the way Washington governs today—getting us back to a state of bipartisan cooperation.

It sounds like you've been talking to Barack Obama.
[Laughs.]

You've said that he intrigues you. Would you vote for him?
Well, I have great affection and admiration for John McCain, too. Senator Obama's message is actually very similar to the one the president ran on in 2000, being a uniter and not a divider and changing Washington. Sen. Obama talks about changing the way that Washington works. This book talks about how difficult is to do that. There has to be a constant focus on elevating the discourse and counterweights put in place to minimize the excesses of the permanent campaign culture. It's not an easy thing to accomplish. If anyone's going to come in and do that, they better have a plan in place and constantly work to make sure that it's happening. I offer some ideas for making that happen.

Your brother [who was the Medicare and Medicaid Services Administrator] also worked in the West Wing. What was his reaction to this project?
He's been very supportive, he understands where I'm coming from. Look, the initial reaction tried to put this book in "gotcha" points. I think now that we're starting to move past that initial-reaction stage, people are starting to look at the larger message within the book.

The kind of disillusion you describe, is it common? Or do you feel alone in this?
No, I think it certainly has happened to a number of other people. You come to Washington with these high hopes and strong idealistic viewpoint. You get here and the destructive culture kind of overtakes and overpowers everything else. I'm certainly not the first and I won't be the last to go through this kind of disillusionment that I experienced in my final 10 months at the White House.

Critics view some of your former colleagues as sinister figures. What's Karl Rove really like?
Well, in the book I talk about the permanent campaign culture. Karl didn't create the permanent campaign culture; the permanent campaign culture created people like Karl Rove. Their focus is on the political manipulation that drives too much of our national political discourse today. Karl's got a lot of good attributes and this is not a book that is personal. This is a book that is focused on a much larger message than any one person.

What about Vice President Dick Cheney?
[Laughs.] The vice president is a guy who keeps things pretty close to the vest. I think the president has at times been too deferential to him and delegated the implementations of some policies more so than he should have to the vice president. I think that [Cheney] has a dark view of the world and is willing to use some tough means. In some circumstances, the end justifies the means of getting there I think in the vice president's viewpoint.