Thursday, April 20

Shaking it up, for no real good reason

With all of yesterday's hysteria about little Suri Cruise, I was unable to comment on the recent job shakeups at the White House ... but today dawns bright and sunny!
Karl Rove, political guru and hatchet man, has been reassigned, though he still holds the title of deputy chief of staff, to focus on strategic and tactical planning within the administration, including the November congressional elections, and shedding himself of the responsibility of policy development. Good, but still scary.
Also, the president's relentlessly tight-lipped press secretary, Scott McClellan (far left, with the frowning guy), resigned from his post. McClellan, who has been the ... um ... I'd say "voice," but really, he and his bosses don't say much ... and public face for three years, said that it was time to "move on." He'll stay on until a replacement is found.
According to USA Today.com, "Bush also announced that deputy budget director Joel Kaplan will become deputy chief of staff for policy, assuming that part of Rove's duties. Kaplan follows his boss, Joshua Bolten, the former budget director who took over as chief of staff on Monday."
All these changes come in the wake of the president's AWFUL poll ratings, and, shall we say, strained relationship with Congress. Even his Republican allies have called for staff changes. (Fat lot of good it all does, really. The man doing the biggest amount of damage isn't going anywhere until 2008, and is continuing to "stand behind" his not-handling-this-right Secretary of Defense.)
But wait, here's my favorite part. In commenting on McClellan's resignation, Bush had this to say: "One of these days, he [McClellan] and I are going to be rocking in chairs in Texas and talking about the good old days." ... sigh ... THESE are the good old days? I fear for the next two years.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Ahhh corporate restructures....