“Mr. President, Congress wants your balls on a platter.”

Rumors that president Bush is being encouraged to take a GOP establishment type on board to whip his staff into shape are rife. CNN’s Dana Bash reported today that “a move is afoot among some friends and confidantes of President Bush to persuade him to bring in at least one seasoned Republican veteran to help his struggling staff.”

Talking Points Memo proprietor Josh Marshall, himself a seasoned and at this point seriously jaundiced observer of the Washington political maelstrom, notes the report and says “this is what happens when the resident establishment in DC rises up to geld a weakened president.”

But seasoned establishment Republicans haven’t fared well in the Bush administration. Lawrence Lindsay, the president’s first economic advisor and a Reagan-era stalwart, was unceremoniously dumped from the clan when he estimated the cost of the then-pending Iraq invasion at $100-200 billion, 10 or 20 times the administration’s official estimate. Colin Powell, who became a member of the Republican establishment the moment he left the military, was neutered almost as soon as he took office. Other lesser members of the establishment have come to similarly woeful ends.

Only two old guard GOP luminaries have really thrived under Bush, or over him, depending on your frame of reference: Dick Cheney and Don Rumsfeld. In the eyes of the establishment, though, Cheney is now a major part of the problem and would likely be the object of attempts to isolate him and diminish his influence over the president. But he’s not about to brook interference from his old friends; this is a guy who set out to change the world and is living on borrowed time. Things aren’t going well, he’s grumpy and anyone who gets in his way can look forward to some long days in the barrel.

The primary obstacle to any attempt at bringing the White House under the control of the long-slighted establishment is Bush. It’s been a long time since he trotted around at the heels of the people who created him and got him more or less elected. He’s his own man now, or at least not theirs, and he’s made it very clear that he doesn’t value any counsel other than God’s, his own and the handful of advisors the Republican outsiders want to squelch. The idea that some establishment pooper-scooper is going to waltz in and whisk Turd Blossom off to the compost heap of history is nonsense. The odds that the son is likely to submit to one of his father’s capos are slim.

There is one guy who might be able to pull it off, and that’s legendary Bush family fixer James Baker, who has spent the past five years globe trotting to clean up after Junior (he’s probably soothing ruffled feathers in Dubai now). Whether he’d take the job is another thing, and whether Bush at this point views him as anything more than a valued retainer is open to question as well.

So don’t look for Bush to don a baby doll dress and execute a Dior turn. His legacy is secure in his own mind, which is the only place that counts for him, and neither Cheney nor Karl Rove are going down without a scorched-earth fight. And the first shot they’ll fire is the same one Josh Marshall does: “Mr. President, this guy wants to hand Congress your balls on a platter.”

The most entertaining line in Bash’s report on CNN is this:

According to two sources involved in the discussions, some veteran Republicans have been quietly trying to convince White House chief of staff Andy Card to bring in at least one “adult,” like a former senator or another “experienced hand,” to help him reach out to congressional leaders, troubleshoot and, in the words of one source, “just be in the loop and give advice.”

Setting aside for the moment that the next adult who walks in the door is going to get spanked: Does anyone recall when the Republican mantra was that the grownups were coming back to Washington? What’s the tag line this time?