Friends in High Places

As Commerce secretary, Donald Evans never wavered from the president's agenda.

The recent exit of Commerce Department Secretary Donald Evans didn't attract nearly as much attention as the departure of eight other Cabinet members, yet it's likely that President Bush will feel his absence more acutely than any other.

Partly, that's a reflection of a longtime personal relationship that reaches back to Midland, Texas, where Evans served as CEO of an independent oil and gas exploration firm. As Bush knows all too well from observing his father's one-term presidency, true friendship is close to impossible to find at the highest levels of government.

But Evans will be missed more for his steadiness under pressure, his uncanny ability to stay out of trouble and for his unwavering loyalty to the administration, traits of Cabinet leadership that are not only underappreciated, but also often at odds.

Those qualities will never win media adulation or kind treatment from historians. But like Bush, Evans was the anomalous public servant who never seemed to care about such things. Instead, he concentrated on getting the little things right, always being on message and always looking out for the president's interests. In one memorable CNN interview, he somehow managed to shoehorn 13 references to Bush into the space of a 220-word answer. If you think that's easy, try the exercise yourself.

While slavishness to the president's agenda is no virtue, it certainly is a prerequisite for gaining the White House's trust-something Evans had in spades. The original Bush economic team was often derided for its gaffe-prone, junior varsity-quality performance (especially when compared with the Robert Rubin-led team under President Clinton). Evans, however, evolved into the only economic player who could be trusted with a public role.

Some of that respect derived from what didn't happen on his watch. Newspapers, for example, didn't run accounts of sleazy trade missions for big donors. Evans never rattled Wall Street-an accomplishment that not all the administration's economic policymakers can claim-even if Wall Street never exactly warmed to him.

In the fishbowl of official Washington, gaffe avoidance is central to effective leadership. Evans had the discipline to recognize that every day for four straight years. Former Education Secretary Rod Paige, for example, will be remembered not just for his role in the No Child Left Behind law, but also for his impolitic characterization of the National Education Association as "a terrorist organization."

Evans never made those kinds of costly slip-ups. The imposition of steel tariffs in 2001, and its subsequent repeal, occurred with minimal damage to the party. The botched search for the first Commerce Department "manufacturing czar" was quickly turned to a political advantage with the selection of Hispanic businessman Al Frink of Orange County, Calif. In some measure that's why, when National Journal magazine graded the Bush Cabinet in 2003, Evans got an A minus. Only one Cabinet head scored higher: former Secretary of State Colin Powell.

Evans even emerged unscathed from the Enron debacle. After it was revealed that both he and former Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill had received calls for help from Enron CEO Ken Lay, Evans quickly extricated himself from the wreckage. O'Neill, by contrast, poured gasoline on the fire by referring to the corporate collapse as "part of the genius of capitalism."

Only a limited portfolio was formally attached to Evans' job, but as a close friend to a controversial president and as a key player on trade and tax issues, he nevertheless occupied a position directly in the cross hairs. In a campaign where economic issues figured prominently, in an administration that had precious little success to point to, somehow Evans escaped with only a few scrapes and bruises. Thanks in part to his good friend, the same might be said of George W. Bush.