President Bush has created one of the most powerful White Houses in at least a generation, reshaping the Washington political equation in a way that provides him both considerable opportunity and peril in the year ahead.
With the all-but-certain rise of his close ally, Sen. Bill Frist of Tennessee, as Republican leader, the president has consolidated what even Democrats said was a stunning degree of authority in the White House at the halfway point of his four-year term.
The perception that Bush and his chief political counsel, Karl Rove, orchestrated a coup in the Senate --- notwithstanding the official White House denials that it had anything to do with Sen. Trent Lott's decision to give up his leadership post Friday --- has only enhanced what veteran political strategists say is the political potency of the White House.
''This White House is very, very strong,'' said William J. Bennett,...