Card shuffled out of the deck

Many observers are wondering if the resignation of Andy Card as White House Chief of Staff is the beginning of the hoped-for--or at least expected--shakeup of personnel on the failing president's team. For example, the Financial Times writes:

The resignation of Mr Card – who served for more than five years in the position that Mr Bush has dubbed "the Big One," - follows months of speculation about a shake-up. In a sign of the growing unease about the administration, these calls have increasingly come from Bush loyalists such as Norm Coleman, Republican senator for Minnesota, who called for a new team with "fresh political antenna." Last week Mr Bush, was again asked about changes, but noted, "Well, I’m not going to announce it now."

Ritual purification would seem to be the order of the day, in an administration so thoroughly tainted by grand juries, indictments, a dismal second-term slate of domestic and foreign policy accomplishments, and ever-sinking poll numbers. So perhaps Card's departure will provide satisfying political theater for some.

But for anyone expecting that this will produce any noticeable change in the strategy or tactics of Team Bush--forget it. Replacing Card with Josh Bolten isn't bringing James Baker in to rescue Reagan's second term; it's just more of the same. As the Financial Times continues:

In office, Mr Bush has favoured loyalists and old friends over intellectual thinkers or policy mavens in making his most senior appointments, Most of his most senior aides, from Mr Card, who also served for Mr Bush’s father, to Karl Rove, his deputy chief of staff, have known him for decades. Mr Bolten is in the same mould as Mr Card. He worked for Mr Bush’s father for four years and was recently head of the budget office.

The rot at the top isn't just about the individuals holding this or that position in the Bush administration; it's every bit as much about the policies the administration is pursuing. Make a few minor changes in personnel but keep the policies in place, and nothing will get better. And the policies won't change so long as Rove, Rumsfeld, and Cheney stay in place. Bush has demonstrated that it'll take dynamite to get Rove and Rummy out, even though the former has leaked classified information and the latter is the architect of the military disaster that is Operation Iraqi Freedom.

And we know Bush isn't getting rid of Cheney, because Cheney said so.

Abrupt resignation seems to run neck-and-neck with scandal in the second-term Bush administration--sometimes it's scandal by a nose, and other times the resignation just beats scandal to the wire, but it's invariably a close race. (Although John Dickerson at Slate has developed a more complex system for tracking the Bush departures.)

So here's my prediction: Expect nasty news about Andy Card to surface in the next few weeks. Maybe this. Maybe something else.