Flounder, we hardly knew ye

I guess we won't have Scott McClellan to kick around anymore.

President George W. Bush's press secretary Scott McClellan resigned on Wednesday and senior adviser Karl Rove gave up the policy-development part of his job in a White House shake-up.

The moves were part of an effort by new White House Chief of Staff Josh Bolten, who started work last weekend, to help Bush rebound from sagging polls and bolster American confidence in his leadership.

Bush's job approval ratings are hovering around the high 30s, the lowest of his presidency, pushed down in part by growing public disillusion with the Iraq war.

As for Karl Rove's allegedly reduced role,

Rove's job change meant that he has survived the shake-up, although with a shrunken portfolio. White House insiders said they expected him to remain as influential as ever.

All this means is that Bolten recognizes that the public considers Rove about the most unseemly person in the White House outside of big Dick, and for a staff shakeup to have any effect on Bush's subterranean poll numbers, Rove's name had to be mentioned. But don't expect Bush to start taking shits without checking with Karl first.

As for McClellan, he was just being a good German. He was constantly painted into corners by the administration and looked foolish at press conferences because his job essentially was to defend the undefensible and try to make sense of the senseless.

But before you start shedding tears for McClellan, he knew he was taking a job that required him to lie to the American people about the activities of their government on pretty much a daily basis. He had to know he, like everyone else in the administration save for Don Rumsfeld and Turd Blossom, would be cut loose the moment it benefitted the bosses for whom he whored himself and destroyed his personal credibility. Nobody told him to lie down with such dogs. Now he can go home, count his money and scratch his fleas.

Remember, it was just a month ago that the White House, through it's lying mouth, appropriately enough, rejected calls for the shakeup we're seeing now.

So much for that.