TRANSFUSION TIME:

Talk of Changes in White House Staff Turns to Its Chief (ELISABETH BUMILLER, 12/05/05, NY Times)

"I hope you know that coming into a new year, some people say, 'I want to move on,' " Andrew H. Card Jr., the White House chief of staff, said in a recent interview.

Mr. Card named no names, and he cast any coming change as part of the normal ebb and flow of presidential personnel. Still, some speculate about Mr. Card in particular and whether he will finally make the move to become Treasury secretary.

For more than a year now, Republicans close to the White House have said that Mr. Card was interested in the job. But the buzz picked up last week after Mr. Card and Dan Bartlett, the president's counselor, were hit by complaints about Treasury Secretary John W. Snow at a retreat of House and Senate Republican leaders on the Chesapeake Bay.

The grousing about Mr. Snow was so loud that even Democratic Congressional aides were aware that the House speaker, Representative J. Dennis Hastert of Illinois, had complained to Mr. Card and Mr. Bartlett that the administration needed to be more aggressive in talking about the economy.

Good economic news and the coming election in Iraq should make it a perfect time for Mr. Card to bail with dignity.

Posted by Orrin Judd at December 5, 2005 6:22 AM