White House Staff Shake-Up Continues

President Bush walks with White House press secretary Scott McClellan at the White House Wednesday, April 19, 2006. McClellan announced Wednesday that he is stepping down as White House press secretary. (AP Photo/Ron Edmonds)

This is just off Yahoo News:

WASHINGTON - White House Deputy Chief of Staff Karl Rove gave up some of his responsibilities and White House press secretary Scott McClellan announced his resignation Wednesday, continuing a shake-up in President Bush's administration that has already yielded a new chief of staff.

NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!! Mr. Scott McClellan is leaving? This is a sad day.

Appearing with Bush on the South Lawn, McClellan, who has parried especially fiercely with reporters on
Iraq and on intelligence issues, told Bush: "I have given it my all sir and I have given you my all sir, and I will continue to do so as we transition to a new press secretary."

Bush said McClellan had "a challenging assignment."

"I thought he handled his assignment with class, integrity," the president said. "It's going to be hard to replace Scott, but nevertheless he made the decision and I accepted it. One of these days, he and I are going to be rocking in chairs in Texas and talking about the good old days."

McClellan is expected to remain in his job until a successor is named. Among those under consideration are Tony Snow, a former White House speechwriter under the first President Bush, former
Pentagon spokeswoman Victoria Clarke and Dan Senor, a former coalition spokesman after the invasion of Iraq, according to Republican officials.

McClellan was named press secretary in June 2003, not long after the United States invaded Iraq and had first been a deputy to
Ari Fleischer in the job — a White House position with daily public visibility rivaling virtually everyone there except the president.

After the announcement, Bush and McClellan walked across the lawn together and boarded Marine One, but a problem with the helicopter's radio kept it grounded. The president and his staff were forced to take a motorcade to Andrews Air Force Base, Md., where Bush boarded Air Force One for a flight to Alabama. McClellan and Rove rode in the president's limousine to the military base.

McClellan came back on the plane to the press cabin and shook hands all around. Someone said it was a sad moment, and McClellan replied, "It is sad on some level." He said he would accompany Bush on a trip to California this weekend and remain on the job for a couple more weeks.

He said he had been thinking seriously about leaving in the past few weeks since Andrew Card announced he was leaving.

Then again, it is not surprising for Scotty to be leaving now, considering that he's been forced to reiterate White House lies and political spin that nobody really believes in anymore. He pretty much became a joke in the White House press briefings. Now that Bush's poll numbers are down in the toilet, the White House is trying to get a shake-up within their staff in order to improve Bush's standing in the polls. But the problem isn't the shake-up in the staff--the problem is the disastrous policies this Bush administration has embarked upon. When almost 70 percent of the American people believe that the country is on the wrong track, then no staff change is going to solve the problem. Changes in the political policies will.

However, I don't believe this Bush White House--which has concentrated its energies in marketing and public relations--will understand that lesson.