Less Deck Chair, More Policy Changing

Michelle Malkin weighs in on the deck chair shuffling, but surprisingly limits her speculations.    She talks about the usual suspects such as Secretary of the Treasury John Snow who oversees the economy that is one aspect of the administration that is supposedly going well - so fire him?  Go figure!   She reworks the hint that President Bush would like Goldman Sachs chief Henry Paulson - but wouldn't that be too much like the Clinton administration (to be avoided at all costs) with Robert Rubin - who was highly regarded as one of the best Treasury secretaries.

Scott McClellan is obviously an attempt to shoot the messenger - but if he is given lousy scripts, why should he get the shaft?  Clearly he has been kept out of the loop and left to hang high and dry in front of the press too often. 

The two areas that are bedeviling the President are Iraq - but only a few have mentioned that Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld in the media - despite the many books that are coming out to finger him for the prosecution of the war - and Department of Homeland Security Secretary Chertoff who oversees FEMA, one of Bush's bigger domestic low lights and immigration and border security which is another.  Given that a new head of FEMA cannot be found and that former FEMA head felt he had to work around Chertoff, perhaps that is an indication that there are problems at the top there. 

Vice-President won't resign despite not being the world's best regarded prognosticator of world events - namely because he is great impeachment protection, popular with the base and a good bad cop so Bush can look marginally better by comparison - and also because there could be the distinct possibility if Cheney resigned of bringing someone in - even Secretary of State Rice, that that person could easily upstage Bush which would be seen as distinctly unloyal, even if not intentional - and that would be totally unacceptable. 

Thus it comes back to changing a few policies rather than window dressing with personnel - and Malkin did hit on a few that rankle her and others that could cause a bit of an uptick - but only if Iraq improves.