Posted on 12/04/2005 9:42:31 PM PST by RWR8189
There may be 26 holiday parties in 21 days at the White House this month, but the mood in the West Wing is anything but merry. True, President Bush's recent Iraq speeches have put the White House back into comfortable blasts of campaign mode, but a lot of staff members say that they are feeling burned out and beaten down.
So talk has intensified after a miserable year - Iraq, Hurricane Katrina, the C.I.A. leak investigation, Iraq - about staff changes and who may be leaving in January. "I hope you know that coming into a new year, some people say, 'I want to move on,' " Andrew H. Card Jr., the White House chief of staff, said in a recent interview.
Mr. Card named no names, and he cast any coming change as part of the normal ebb and flow of presidential personnel. Still, some speculate about Mr. Card in particular and whether he will finally make the move to become Treasury secretary.
For more than a year now, Republicans close to the White House have said that Mr. Card was interested in the job. But the buzz picked up last week after Mr. Card and Dan Bartlett, the president's counselor, were hit by complaints about Treasury Secretary John W. Snow at a retreat of House and Senate Republican leaders on the Chesapeake Bay.
The grousing about Mr. Snow was so loud that even Democratic Congressional aides were aware that the House speaker, Representative J. Dennis Hastert of Illinois, had complained to Mr. Card and Mr. Bartlett that the administration needed to be more aggressive in talking about the economy. Mr. Hastert has in any case been angry with Mr. Snow because three times last year the Treasury Department rejected federal loan guarantees for the bankrupt United Airlines,
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
Wasn't Mr. Card the go-to-guy/big-idea-guy who came up with the Harriet Miers nomination?
Above all else, they need to get rid of the Press Secretary. He has done no justice for the President other than rolling over and taking whatever crap the MSM throws at him without even trying to throw it back.
Someone with a spine need apply.
All the WH needs is for its Homepage to be FR.
Hire someone to read it all day, and plan accordingly!
"These Rino's don't even pretend to care about taxpayers !"
Sure they do. They will take care that you and I finance all the illegals too!
Scotty definitely needs to be beamed up. I would modify the transporter to create a duplicate of Rummy and put him in the job.
Sure was.
He was even yelling at people when they were critical of her before she even became the pick.
But Card isn't going anywhere.
He has already had one of the longest tenures as chief of staff in history, and its more likely that he'll break the record, Snowe isn't looking to leave and wants to stay.
That said, Card is not overworked, in relation to past chiefs of staff, he actually has a much lighter workload, as President Bush prefers to deal with his cabinet more directly and face to face and meet with them personally as opposed to using the chief of staff to play filter and everyone going through the chief (think the anti-sununu).
Dick Cheney also picks up alot of the workload along with his staff, and Karl Rove is a deputy chief of staff and senior advisor, so alot of the meat and bulk of CofS job is already being taken care of by other people.
Card would also have to deal with opposition if he tried to go to treasury from conservatives, Card isn't a supply sider and is actually more along the lines of a moderate to neo-liberal.
I think the perfect guy would be Ben Stein.
Though they really do need to upgrade the press sec, this guy is a disaster, maybe bring back Ari if need be.
Wishfull thinking would be, to have Fred Thompson.
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Harry Callahan.
Probably just another disinformation campaign of the NYT.
Yeah... I agree! The guy knows how show-business works (press secretary is partly like show-business, IMO). He has BA in economics (Columbia) and JD (Yale), and fun too! If Helen Thomas asks too many questions, Ben can start answering with his Al-Gore-style monoton-robotic voice... (if.. you.. have... red... eyes...)
Thanks for the detailed response.
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