Can Bush's New Captain Steady the Ship?

Time Magazine has an article talking about the new White House chief of staff Josh Bolten, who has replaced Andrew Card. Much of the article is about who Josh Bolten is. But there are a couple of interesting paragraphs regarding Andrew Card:

For all the blame Card was getting around Washington for the drifting of the second term, he was sufficiently beloved in the West Wing that some officials cried after he went before cameras in the Oval Office and told Bush in a choked voice, "Ecclesiastes reminds us that there are different seasons, and there is a new season." The staff had also embraced his wife Kathleene Card, a Methodist minister who often told reporters that she prays for the press.

Card did not want to go. But he "heard the tom-toms," according to someone who knows him well, and told Bush it was in the best interests of the team for him to leave, five months short of the record tenure in the job set by Sherman Adams under President Dwight Eisenhower. "People like Andy personally, but they're relieved, because this should have happened a year ago," a Bush confidant said.

White House Chief of Staff Andrew Card (L) speaks as US President George W. Bush looks on in the Oval Office of the White House in Washington, DC. Card resigned as President George W. Bush, under pressure over falling popularity ratings, brought changes to his administration.(AFP/Mandel Ngan)

Card did not want to go, but he felt it was in the best interests of the Bush White House that he had to leave? What were those reasons? Why did Card feel it was in the best interests of the Bush White House for him to go? What were those interests?

We know that since Bush was re-elected, the president has been under enormous pressure of scandals being revealed and charges of incompetence in the Bush administration. We also know that the White House PR machine has been unable to quash or deflect these scandals away from the president--why else is the president hovering at a job approval rating of around 36 percent? If Card is leaving because of the revelations of Katrina, FEMA, the illegal NSA domestic spying on Americans, the Iraq war disaster, the Dubai ports fiasco, the misuse of intelligence in marketing the Iraq war, then Card is way late in deciding to leave now. The seeds of these disasters were planted the moment George Bush stepped into the Oval Office. Any White House staff changes that will occur now, will not help undo the damage this administration has caused--and that includes replacing Andrew Card with Josh Bolten.

You're just rearranging the deck chairs on the Titantic.