MORE SHAKEUP! The hapless Scott McClellan resigned this morning as White House press secretary. The conventional rap on McClellan has long been that, in stark contrast to the near-sociopathic unflappability with which his predecessor Ari Fleischer could lie and stonewall on behalf of the president, he always showed the flop sweat and strain when doing the same. If that reflects a bit better on McClellan's personal humanity, I suppose we can all wish him well. The rogues' gallery of rumored possible replacements is genuinely frightening, however: former Pentagon flak and current CNN contributor Victoria Clarke, former CPA flak and current Fox News contributor Dan Senor, and longtime Fox News fixture and Rush Limbaugh pinch-hitter Tony Snow top the list. Really, if they wanted to install a Fox News anchor that could make me love the president, they'd appoint Steve Doocy.
It's a bit refreshing to have the ongoing "White House shakeup" story now shift focus to the inherently substance-free job of press secretary -- it makes explicit what had been slightly obscured in the previous staff changes, which is that this "shakeup" is about cosmetic shifts and has nothing to do with meaningful changes in directions on policy matters. Speaking of which, the AP reports that Karl Rove "is giving up oversight of policy development to focus more on politics," which is good because I was worried Rove was getting lost in the policy weeds and it'd be great to see what he does when he's in a more political frame of mind.
--Sam Rosenfeld
