Time: Card Was Pushed Out

The newsweekly reports

about Bush’s recently departed chief of staff: “Card did not want to go. But he ‘heard the tom-toms.’ “

The magazine also writes that Card’s replacement, Josh Bolten, has “less disdain for the press and more interest in policy.”

Time:

Among insiders, it’s being called “the reboot.” Although President George W. Bush stuck close to home when he chose Budget Director Josh Bolten to succeed chief of staff Andrew H. Card Jr. last week, officials consulted by the White House said the overhaul will be more consequential than it looked at first. These officials said Bolten, who comes on board April 15, plans to put some new faces in front of the public and on Capitol Hill. Bush, who retired to his Texas ranch for the weekend after a summit in Cancn, did not want it to appear that inside-the-Beltway carping had sparked a staff shuffle. Now it can be attributed to Bolten, who will add some meat to an election-year agenda that has disappointed even some of the President’s most fervent supporters. Speaking of Bush’s team, a Bolten friend said, “Josh thinks they need to communicate better, and need something better to communicate.”

The new appointment has bought Bush some time, but allies of the White House say he must do more. They say Bush has the chance to right his second term if he is willing to follow through with a few more tough decisions, such as one to increase the social contact he has had with key lawmakers.

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