Andy Card Resigns

Big news of the day: WH Chief of Staff Andy Card Resigns

Via WaPo:

White House Chief of Staff Andrew H. Card Jr. announced his resignation this morning after nearly 5-1/2 years as President Bush's top aide. Bush said Card will be replaced by Joshua B. Bolten, the director of the Office of Management and Budget.

Card will serve until April 14 to provide a transition period. The move could presage broader staff changes as Bolten takes over an operation hobbled by political problems heading into a crucial midterm election season. [...]

Card has held the top staff job at the White House longer than any person since Sherman Adams under President Dwight D. Eisenhower and had earned enormous respect within the building and around Washington for his calm professionalism and stamina. But his stewardship of the Bush team had come under question in recent months after a series of mishaps, including the failed Supreme Court nomination of Harriet Miers, the bungled federal response to Hurricane Katrina, the slow public disclosure of Vice President Cheney's shooting accident and the unexpected Republican revolt over a plan to turn over management at a half dozen ports to an Arab-owned company.

Bush said Card had approached him earlier this month about the possibility of stepping down, and Bush accepted his offer this weekend, when the two were at Camp David.

"He's been here 5-1/2 years. The average tenure of chief of staff is two years," said a senior administration official, who spoke before the announcement, but refused to be named so as not to upstage the president. "Change can be good and necessary and that's what they had discussed."

The official said the decision was Card's, not Bush's: "Andy initiated it with the president." [...]

Card, 59, has been the focal point of much discussion in Washington about how physically and politically exhausted the White House staff must be in the sixth year of a presidency buffeted by recession, terrorism and war. Card has told interviewers that he gets up every morning at 4:20 a.m., arrives at the White House an hour or so after that and works until 8 or 9 at night.

No big surprises here. He's served his president and now its time for him to relax. This may not be the BIG shakeup that Washington has been buzzing about (replacing one insider with another is hardly giving the administration a 'facelift'). However, it certainly is a start and I suspect there will be more changes to come.