Sunday Morning News

Bush White House Expected to be Relaxed, Quiet

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

JEANNE MESERVE, CNN ANCHOR: And there will be a new look for the White House as the Bushes move in. The redecorating has already started. Painters are going through the White House, scraping off old paint and putting a new coat on the walls, and empty offices are being filled with boxes to be unpacked, and phones and computers are getting ready to be used.

And joining us now to talk about the social style of the new Bush administration is Lloyd Grove. He's the Reliable Source columnist for "The Washington Post" Style section, and he joins us this morning from our Washington bureau.

Good morning, Lloyd.

LLOYD GROVE, COLUMNIST, "THE WASHINGTON POST": Morning, Jeanne.

MESERVE: And style-wise, what is the biggest change the Bushes are going to bring to Washington?

GROVE: Well, after eight years of melodrama and excitement from the Clintons, I think we're entering an age of new sobriety. I think we're going to have -- the Bushes are very calm, they're comfortable, they're punctual, they're prompt, they're efficient in terms of getting home from the inaugural balls by midnight last night.

And I think we're just going to be able to relax a little bit.

MESERVE: One of the things we all monitor in your column are the comings and goings of the celebrities, the Ted Dansons, the Mary Steenburgens who have streamed in to see the Clintons. Are we going to see that same sort of Hollywood glitz in Washington?

GROVE: I'm afraid we're not, because most people in Hollywood are Democrats, and the Bushes also are kind of suspicious of the glitterati. And their friends are people they've known for years and years, people from Texas, people from Andover prep school, Yale, Harvard.

And they'll do all those glittery things that presidents and first ladies normally do, but I think it's going to be fairly normal and regular.

MESERVE: Like President Clinton, President Bush is a jogger, but is McDonald's going to be his favorite restaurant, do you think? GROVE: I don't think so. I think he's more into Tex-Mex.

MESERVE: And what about tipping? This is something...

Excuse me, I have to interrupt just a moment to say we see the Bushes there exiting the National Cathedral, where they have been attending a prayer service, as the congregation sings "America the Beautiful," I believed. Let's listen for a moment.

Lloyd, so -- I was talking to you, I think, about restaurants, and you told me you didn't think McDonald's was it but Tex-Mex. One of the things we track in your column also is tipping. What do you think about this administration? Are they going to be big tippers when they go out or not?

GROVE: I think they're going to be appropriate tippers, nothing too ostentatious, but they're not going to be ungenerous. They're going to be compassionate tippers.

MESERVE: Compassionate tippers, that compassionate conservatism even carrying over to the restaurants, OK.

Washington sees power go back and forth every four years or eight years. Is this transition, in your estimation, a little bit different, in both its style and tone?

GROVE: Yes, I think so. You would have thought that a new president of a different party coming in, there'd be a lot of, you know, eagerness and excitement, and there is that among the faithful, but it seems as though everything is just going on as before. The Clintons aren't even leaving. They're going to have a, I think, a new social center at their new house in Washington that might compete with the White House for attention.

So the more things change, the more they stay the same.

MESERVE: Are we going to see some echoes of the senior Bush's administration?

GROVE: Oh, well, echoes, reverberations, I mean, a great many people who are -- who worked for George Bush the elder are in this White House as well. So it's going to be very similar.

MESERVE: And we're going to hear a lot of country music, aren't we?

GROVE: Yes, we're going to hear country music, and every so often some classical music. I went to one of the pre-inaugural parties, and they had a string quintet playing Vivaldi.

MESERVE: Right; Lloyd Grove of "The Washington Post," thanks so much for joining us today.

GROVE: My pleasure.

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