[The Office of Personnel Management's Plum Book, published at the start of each presidential Administration, shows that there are more than 3,000 positions a President can fill without consideration for civil service rules. And Bush has gone further than most Presidents to put political stalwarts in some of the most important government jobs you've never heard of, and to give them genuine power over the bureaucracy.] These folks are really good at using the instruments of government to promote the President's political agenda, ... And I think that takes you well into the gray zone where few Presidents have dared to go in the past. It's the coordination and centralization that's important here.
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