Presidential Aides

For years here and in Texas, Scott McClellan was the consummate loyalist, exhibiting faithful, unquestioning devotion to his boss, George W. Bush. As White House press secretary, he scrappily presented the administration's talking points on everything from domestic policy to the Iraq war. No longer.

Now that the confetti has fallen, the nascent administration of Barack Obama has come face to face with one of its biggest challenges: living up to the exceptionally high expectations his thrilling campaign produced among supporters and long-suffering Democrats. At his transition team's first public briefing Tuesday, the audience was wildly outsized for the presentation by the transition chief, owlish think-tank denizen John Podesta.

Antiwar groups and other liberal activists are increasingly concerned at signs that Barack Obama's national security team will be dominated by appointees who favored the Iraq invasion and hold hawkish views on other important foreign policy issues. The activists are uneasy not only about signs that both Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.) and Defense Secretary Robert M.

Despite increased speculation that Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa may be heading to Washington, he said Monday that he would not be joining President-elect Barack Obama's Cabinet. Villaraigosa said he had a "conversation" with Obama in mid-November about joining the new Democratic administration but told the incoming president that he would stay in Los Angeles to focus on his reelection campaign and ongoing efforts to address the city's financial troubles and other pressing issues.

Harriet E. Miers, a member of a diminishing circle of allies who came to Washington in 2001 with President Bush, is resigning as White House counsel at the end of this month, the White House announced Thursday. The ill-fated nomination of Miers to the Supreme Court, in 2005, left Bush tangled in complaints of cronyism and in dispute with his conservative allies.

Randall L. Tobias, head of the Bush administration's foreign aid programs, abruptly resigned Friday. His name had surfaced in an investigation into a prostitution ring, according to two people in a position to know the circumstances of his departure. It was Tobias' decision to resign, according to one of the people, who said the issue came up in the last day or so. The people spoke to the Associated Press on condition of anonymity because the investigation was ongoing.

White House counsel Fred F. Fielding, who was hired to help President Bush fend off a growing number of congressional probes, announced Friday that he had expanded his staff to handle the workload. Fielding has hired nine lawyers, filling four vacancies and expanding the size of the staff to 22 attorneys from 17, according to White House officials. White House spokeswoman Emily Lawrimore said the new hires included specialists in the Supreme Court, Congress and the military.

washington -- President Bush will finish his final 17 months in office without his political guru and alter ego, Karl Rove, who announced Monday that he would leave the administration at the end of the month. Rove, who has worked on Bush's political campaigns for 15 years, is the last Texan in the president's inner circle to leave the White House -- and the president -- behind.

In nearly a decade as the guiding political strategist for George W. Bush and the Republican Party, Karl Rove was often hailed as a genius. He masterminded Bush's rise to national prominence, directed his two winning presidential campaigns and wrote a campaign playbook for GOP success in Congress and statehouses across the country.

NEW YORK -- In announcing that he was stepping down as President Bush's top political advisor, Karl Rove said Monday that he wanted to write a book about his White House years. Publishers, with some reservations, would like to see what he has in mind.