The Card Shuffle

"The "Wanderer over Sea of Fog" by Caspar David Friedrich ca.1818, Kunsthalle Hamburg

 

The White House Chief of Staff Andrew Card resigns today. I guess the shuffling of the deck and the dropping of the Card as Ed Morrissey puts it, was inevitable, although not worthy of speculation. Ed finds it "amusing that the press corps can't fathom why Bush would want stability in his senior staff, and at the same time provide shelter for Helen Thomas, who has been around the White House so long she can remember when the British burnt it"

Via Kevin Aylward @ Wizbang: "Ankle Bitting Pundit's say Andy Card's resignation is not part of a big "staff shake-up", but rather frees Card to play a lead role on behalf of his favored candidate in the 2008 GOP Presidential primary - Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney."

I simply find it amusing when I think of the the time MSM will waste making  nonsense of it. Well at least speaking about unimportant issues will be a familiar feeling to them:

Mr. Bush has come under increasing pressure in recent months from members of his own party to shake up his staff as a way of turning around his decline in popularity.

White House Chief of Staff Andrew H. Card Jr. announced his resignation this morning after nearly 5-1/2 years as President Bush's top aide. Bush said Card will be replaced by Joshua B. Bolten, the director of the Office of Management and Budget.

[...] standing at the podium with Card to his right, Bolten to his left. The president thanked Card for his "wise counsel, his calm in crisis, his ability, his integrity, and his tireless commitment to public service" and said "he will always be my friend."

Turning to Bolten, Bush described his new chief of staff as a creative thinker and a strong advocate for accountability and effective management in the federal government.

"He is a man of candor and humor and directness, who is comfortable with responsibility and knows how to lead," Bush said.

Alarmed by Bush's declining approval ratings and unhappiness about the war in Iraq, Republicans have been urging the president to bring in new advisers with fresh ideas and energy. Bolten has been with Bush since his first campaign for the White House. There was no immediate indication of other changes afoot.

Well that is simply not a good enough reason not to make some up is it?

"The good news is the administration has finally realized it needs to change its ways, but the problems go far deeper than one staffer," said Sen. Charles Schumer, D-New York. "Simply rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic by replacing Andy Card with Josh Bolten without a dramatic change in policy will not right this ship."

Policy? Does the Democratic Senator by any chance know what his Party Policy might be, or does he simply rely on knowing what it is not.

Georgia @ Daily Kos immediately gets very busy with a flurry of activity, working up the comments section into a frenzy:

[...] what is interesting is that up until last week, the President was stubbornly insisting no shake-up was needed. The fact that Bush, who has steadfastly insisted his staff would remain, has now accepted the resignation of Andy Card proves again that this is a weak President forced to listen to a very, very frightened party threatened with losing its majority status come November.

Like Scooter Libby, the Vice-President’s Chief of Staff who resigned because of the Plame scandal, Andy Card is in the midst of another scandal–warrantless spying. It was Card (along with Gonzales) who went to Ashcroft’s hospital bed in 2004 to get the approval to keep the illegal program alive. I’m sure the pundits will be abuzz with how this staff shake-up may invigorate the President’s second term, but no matter how much new blood Bush brings in, there’s no saving this failed Presidency now.

I think John Hinderaker's reaction hits it just right: Yawn.

The official from The White House, and the video from Greg @ The Political Pitbull,

Finally, if you would like to have a laugh watch the video of Markos Moulitsas from Daily Kos (looking about 20 years old) being interviewed on CNN. Thank you to California Conservative's "Kos and effect"

And whilst we are completely off topic, you have to listen to this hilarious audio of Alec Baldwin and radio show host Sean Hannity, calling each other "cabin boy" and "no talent whore" respectively, over their opposing political views.

More from both sides on topic, ahem @ Michelle Malkin, PoliPundit, The Moderate Voice, Michael van der Galien@ Liberty&Justice, RedState, California Conservative, Outside The Beltway, The Heretik, Decision '08, Brad DeLong, The Uncooperative Blogger, Middle Earth Journal, The Left Coaster, Macsmind, Betsy's Page, Blogs for Bush, Right Winged, The Daily Brief, The Huffington Post, Wonkette, Brothers Judd Blog, Feministe, Andrew Sullivan, The Washington Monthly Riehl World View

Comments

[Joseph Marshall]

Well, I don't know about triumphalism, since the results will hardly be a triumph for anyone, particularly for the families of the dead that have resulted from it.

But I would read the basic situation this way. The Republican House and Senate will abandon GBW, indeed are already starting to abandon GWB with, I suspect, a fair amount of private satisfaction, if with public unease at their diminishing electoral prospects.

The only thing that will turn this around is a significant and major foreign policy success which boosts the GWB poll numbers. GWB himself has admitted that this is not going to happen in Iraq for the next several years, and it is not likely to happen anywhere else.

If I were a Republican Senator or Congressperson, sticking a genial knife in the ribs of the White House at this point would please me no end, privately. The GWB political game from day one has been "what's mine is mine and what's yours is mine, too", even with his own Party. That comes back to haunt you, sooner or later.

The best those Republican legislators can now hope for is merely a diminished margin of Republican control in both Houses, the worst is a loss of both houses to a thin Democratic majority. In either case the Bush agenda [such as it now is, which is not very much or very clear] will be halted.

The immediate conundrum for them is how to keep the entire Hispanic voting population of the United States from being massively annoyed with them.

Most signs also are that scandal, and failure in the court system, will continue for the GWB practice of attempting to aggrandize the Presidency at the expense of the law.

The attempt to forstall Iran will continue to stall in the UN, and unilateral U.S. military action against Iranian facilities will not happen as long as the bulk of our ground troops are rotating through a deteriorating Iraq.

Israel will straighten itself out on its own. See the Myth of Palestine thread immediately below for details.

The geopolitical configuration of the Middle East will not change in any significant way until 2010 at the earliest. Neither will the standoff with North Korea. The major change, if it occurs, will be from Iranian nuclear success.

A decade or so hence, the serious conflict for 21st century hegemony will take place between the United States and China, probably by then under a Democratic administration, and the historical legacy of the Bush Administration will be that the worst damage, among much other damage, that it did to the state of America and the world came from its neglect of meeting the challenge of China.

And, finally, the high probability is that much desirable United States beachfront property will fairly rapidly become a good start on shoals for a mussel farm.

That's at least how I read the tea leaves, and despite the usual insinuations about my insincere love for this country, merely reading the tea leaves realisticly doesn't mean that I am looking at my cup of tea.

[epaminondas]

Joseph, Joseph , Joseph, there u go again ...

Why do I detect a note of triumpahlism at the thought of the irrelavance of not just an american govt, but in essence, america.

Just think of this, from the political strategist to the wonderful Ahmadi-nejad
"To hear Mr. Abbasi tell it the entire recent history of the U.S. could be narrated with the help of the image of "the last helicopter." It was that image in Saigon that concluded the Vietnam War under Gerald Ford. Jimmy Carter had five helicopters fleeing from the Iranian desert, leaving behind the charred corpses of eight American soldiers. Under Ronald Reagan the helicopters carried the corpses of 241 Marines murdered in their sleep in a Hezbollah suicide attack. Under the first President Bush, the helicopter flew from Safwan, in southern Iraq, with Gen. Norman Schwarzkopf aboard, leaving behind Saddam Hussein's generals, who could not believe why they had been allowed live to fight their domestic foes, and America, another day. Bill Clinton's helicopter was a Black Hawk, downed in Mogadishu and delivering 16 American soldiers into the hands of a murderous crowd.

According to this theory, President George W. Bush is an "aberration," a leader out of sync with his nation's character and no more than a brief nightmare for those who oppose the creation of an "American Middle East." Messrs. Abbasi and Ahmadinejad have concluded that there will be no helicopter as long as George W. Bush is in the White House. But they believe that whoever succeeds him, Democrat or Republican, will revive the helicopter image to extricate the U.S. from a complex situation that few Americans appear to understand."

No american admin left or right, liberal or conservative, democratic or republican will ever be irrelavant, nor find domestic opprobium greater than those whose plans, plan for those who EXULT in that possible irrelevance. You only surrender the initiative to thoe who mean YOUR FAMILY and MINE physical harm because we believe differently. That issue, has no left or right. It's up to THEM, not us.

The Card change is probably irrelevant, as btw the UN has proven itself to be, and is doing so right now (again), to even the frustration of El Baradei

[Joseph Marshall]

Well, at the risk of boring my good conservative friends to tears, I would suggest that while Card is quite irrelevant, his boss is now very nearly as irrelevant as the developments on the immigration issue are currently demonstrating.

In Iraq, in Israel, in the United Nations, in American politics, in the world economy, and in the global environment events have now taken over from the Bush Administration, whose actual position in the world will become increasingly irrelevant as it dissolves into domestic opprobrium.

One can only hope that somewhere under the pile of shards from the bull's passage there's a piece or two of china left. If it is, we can dust it off, put it back on the shelves and start sweeping the floor.

[rachy]

If you like that sort of art check out M.K. Ciurlionis, amazing stuff. Lithuanian-Polish turn of century stuff. Btw., I'm not spam 'cos I'm not selling anything, just blogsurfing

http://neris.mii.lt/art/ciurlionis/chronol.html

[Washington]

Yawn indeed-that is exactly what Michelle Malkin said in her link to John-his post was spot on.

[Baron Bodissey]

I just finished reading a whole lot of material about what's going on in Afghanistan (the apostate Rahman, the influence of the warlords, opium production) and Iran (nukes, hanging "adulterous" women, etc.). Why does this stuff seem so uninteresting?

I suppose these Beltway types will be focusing on things like this until "prostitutes" start being hanged from lampposts on K Street. Or until a dirty bomb goes off in the port of Baltimore. Then they'll have something important to write about.

[DavidByron]

who has been around the White House so long she can remember when the British burnt it

And incidentally, you're welcome. Nothing like burning down the seats of power every now and then!

[Michael (van der) Galien]

On a personal note I would like to say that there is nothing wrong with looking 20 years old.

That I am 21 years old is completely irrelevant for that statement of course.