Promoted Safely Away

Here’s a sign that President Bush may be doing something about the continental drift that’s been plaguing the White House since the fall of the Taliban:

Prominent advisers to President Bush are urging him to name White House Chief of Staff Andrew H. Card Jr. as secretary of the Department of Homeland Security if Congress approves the administration’s plan, several of those advisers said yesterday.

When you don’t have an excuse to fire someone, the next best thing is to give them a “better” job, one where they can’t screw things up quite so badly. I was impressed with Card during Bush’s first year in office, but the notorious increase in leaks and fractiousness hasn’t reflected well on the Chief of Staff.

And as Secretary of Homeland Security, we’ll get someone other than Tom Ridge to pick on for a while.

UPDATE: Card isn’t going to get the DoHS job. It looks like the press will still have Tom Ridge to kick around.