.comment-link {margin-left:.6em;}

Born at the Crest of the Empire

Wednesday, April 19, 2006

On the great White House "shakeup"

The phrase that pays around the White House staff changes seems to be "reenergize," or maybe "new blood," but so far, in all the changes that have hit the media threshold not one new person has been brought into the administration.

Andy Card goes, but Josh Bolten, previously OMB, takes his place.

Bolten's OMB job goes to Trade Rep Bob Portman.

McClellan resigns to be likely replaced by former CPA spokesman Dan Senor.

Karl Rove is supposedly giving up his deputy chief of staff role to focus on the midterms(probably a condition of Bolten taking the job.) That job is being given to Joel Kaplan, now the White House's deputy budget director.

And do you really expect Bush to fill the role of domestic policy chief, replacing Claude Allen involved in the "refund scam" shoplifting at Target, with anybody Bush doesn't "know."

If you move everybody up one notch and replace the mail room guy, I don't think you can refer to it as reenergized or "new blood." That mail room guy may be excited about his new job, but I just don't see the impact.

Throw out Rumsfeld, or Condi Rice, or Rove, or even Cheney. That would make a difference.

I just keep going back to what my tennis buddy Don told me on Sunday, "George Bush is far more capable at judging loyalty than merit."

The Bush administration is all about loyalty over competence. And we're all paying the price.

Did you see the Rolling Stone cover for this week: The Worst President in History?

4 Comments:

  • Something interesting pointed out by Josh Marshall today ... maybe the reason there's no new blood is because they can't get anyone to come to work for them?

    Makes sense to me.

    By Blogger Greyhair, at 11:45 AM  

  • And Jim here will be in charge of moving the deck chairs starbord. And Joe, we'll be elevating him to the task of looking for additional icebergs...

    By Blogger JReid, at 12:20 PM  

  • He also needs to shift his policies before he is going to get any more support from the American public. He's running out of Bush loyalists to serve in his cabinet.

    Maybe he'll tap his mother or mess of a brother Neal Bush to replace someone. Or how about his daughters. That's about the kind of move I'd expect from this knuckle-head.

    By Blogger Handsome B. Wonderful, at 12:32 PM  

  • Yeah, greyhair, I thought about that around McClellan's job. I mean, you know that you're just going to get bludgeoned and you have no control at all with what goes on. It's just an awful post.

    Exactly, JReid, and Joe has had sooo much training looking for icebergs.

    And, James, I hadn't even thought of the daughters. But, no matter how angry Bush may get at them, I can't imagine him putting one of them is that firing line.

    Mike

    By Blogger mikevotes, at 1:15 PM  

Post a Comment

<< Home