White House Still Unshaken

The media is touting Scott McClellan’s departure as press secretary as further evidence of a White House shake-up.

Hardly.

This is supposedly the second major move by the White House, and it’s also the second of little importance. As Michael Crowley notes on McClellan’s resignation: “Scott McClellan's departure will mean approximately zero for the course of human history.”

As press secretary, McClellan’s job was to do nothing more than peddle the official White House line and serve as a punching bag the handful of times the White House press corps got up the nerve to call him on his peddling.

The next person to fill the press secretary role—whether it’s Pentagon spokesperson Victoria Clark or Fox’s Tony Snow (which Josh Marshall astutely notes really would be more of an interdepartmental transfer)—will simply do the same peddling and get the same level of media gruff for it at certain times.

The other allegedly big move came a couple weeks ago when Andy Card resigned as chief of staff. While that may seem significant, he was replaced by Josh Bolten, who has worked in the “inner circle” of the Bush Team for just as long as Card—since Day 1.

Plus, the biggest issues facing the White House right now are Iraq and Iran, while the biggest hole in Bolten’s resume is said to be his foreign policy experience. So in an attempt to bone up on his knowledge, he’s visiting with Washington power circles and current White House aides—hardly the makings of fresh ideas.

And with George “I’m the Decider” Bush’s unwillingness to consider canning Rumsfeld (or any other cabinet-level official), it further suggests we are in for more of the same on the foreign policy front. Just in time for a heated confrontation with Iran!

UPDATE: Josh Marshall adds some sound insight: "I think the real story here continues to be that things are so bad at the White House, the level of denial and secrets to be kept, the self-bamboozlement and bad-faith so profound, that they just can't manage to bring in any new blood."