The Bushies' latest sleight of hand - Flip Card

Andrew Card fell on his incredibly dull sword this morning. The Bushies are obviously listening to all the carping about how tired and full of loyalist crap Dubya's inner circle has become. So what do they do? Appoint Josh Bolten, moronically dubbed "Yosh" by Dubya, the Dubber in Chief. Yosh was Card's Deputy Chief from '01 to '03. He's leaving his most recent post as Budget Director where the "heckuva job" he's been doing makes Michael Brown's tenure at FEMA look like Churchill in WW2 by comparison. The "rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic" cliches are flowing. As they should. Yosh is a Harley-riding lapdog. Hopelessly tied to making Dubya happy above all else. But this is most assuredly Dubya's call so the rest of us can only comment after the fact. That fact? That the entire Bushie cabal is circling the wagons to little effect.

Speaking of former Budget directors that got all bonkers spending on the military and led the Nation down a dangerous path, Caspar "formerly Cap the Knife" Weinberger died today. He was 88. Adjusted for inflation thanks to the National debt he helped create, he was 179. I'm sure I won't be the first to remind readers of Bush the Elder's pardon of Cap on Jesusmas Eve in '92, just days before his trial was to begin for lying to the Independent Counsel investigating the Iran Contra debacle. Weinberger promoted a trillion dollars of new defense spending while Reagan's Budget guy. Bolten's overseen the largest deficits in history, a bloated chunk of which has gone to military expenditures. Notice any serendipity in the "This Day in Bush History" connection? I sure as shineola do.

Hope your own promotions today are more based on the ability to get the job done. Rock on.