Administration allies said that senior officials had made
overtures to prominent executives on Wall Street, including Henry M. Paulson
Jr., the chairman of Goldman Sachs. White House strategists had been hoping to
appoint a big name from the finance world that could help promote positive news
on the economy that is being overshadowed by high gasoline prices and a
generalized anxiety about the country's direction.
But Mr. Paulson and other executives expressed little
interest in taking the post, in part because neither Mr. Snow nor his
predecessor, Paul H. O'Neill, had any substantial role in shaping economic
policy.
The real power to set priorities, whether it was cutting
taxes in 2001 and 2003 or the failed effort to overhaul Social Security in
2005, has always been held by a small circle of advisers in the White House,
including Vice President Dick Cheney.
"They couldn't get someone from Wall Street because
nobody wanted the job," said one senior Republican aide in Congress,
adding that the next Treasury secretary will essentially be a caretaker during
Mr. Bush's last two years in office.
Oops.
