Here's a sign that President Bush may be doing something about the continental drift that's been plaguing the White House since the fall of the Taliban:
Prominent advisers to President Bush are urging him to name White House Chief of Staff Andrew H. Card Jr. as secretary of the Department of Homeland Security if Congress approves the administration's plan, several of those advisers said yesterday.
When you don't have an excuse to fire someone, the next best thing is to give them a "better" job, one where they can't screw things up quite so badly. I was impressed with Card during Bush's first year in office, but the notorious increase in leaks and fractiousness hasn't reflected well on the Chief of Staff.
And as Secretary of Homeland Security, we'll get someone other than Tom Ridge to pick on for a while.
UPDATE: Card isn't going to get the DoHS job. It looks like the press will still have Tom Ridge to kick around.
Wonderful. Card has demonstrated incompetance in his current job? Lets put him in charge of homeland security! Because everytime I fly I'll feel safer if the head of the Department is a proven incompetant.
If this is true, I'd say this idea (of promoting Card) shows either that Bush is a clueless maroon, that he isn't taking the fight against terrorsim seriously, or that the DoHS is a ridiculous joke presented solely for propagandistic purposes and which has no real function or authority, and he knows it and so is safe using the post to hide people he owes far away from the actual adults making decisions. Kind of like every other cabinet office except State and Defense, come to think of it.
Your link now says Bush rejects Card.
I just noticed that, too. Well, never mind my whole rant. I'd still like to see someone other than Ridge get the job, though.
Like Peggy N said in WSJ the other day, give the job to Rudy!
Let's face it: Bush can't fire anybody, dodges responsibility for every incompetent he appointed, and has no guts. He is a bad president. Can you picture him having the guts to fire Douglas MacArthur, the all time war hero, as Truman did?
When oh when are we going to place the blame where "the buck stops here"? Bush has beeen in office for a year and a half. His leadership (ho ho) includes refusal to close the Mexican border so he can have the Mexican vote. Real leadership. Real guts.
