The Card Sacrifice

"Bush said Card had approached him earlier this month about the possibility of stepping down, and Bush accepted his offer this weekend, when the two were at Camp David. . . .

"Card, 59, has been the focal point of much discussion in Washington about how physically and politically exhausted the White House staff must be in the sixth year of a presidency buffeted by recession, terrorism and war."

Rose Garden Statement

Bush also made a brief statement in the Rose Garden after his cabinet meeting this morning, but rather than talk about the staff shakeup or answer reporters' questions, he just previewed tomorrow's speech about Iraq:

"During Saddam Hussein's brutal rule he exploited the ethnic and religious diversity of Iraq by setting communities against one another. And now the terrorists and former regime elements are doing the same -- they're trying to set off a civil war through acts of sectarian violence," Bush said.

"I'll remind the people we're not going to lose our nerve."

Who Is Josh Bolten?

After Bolten was nominated as budget director in 2003, Mike Allen of The Washington Post described him as a "tight-lipped policy technician . . . so immersed in detail that one presidential adviser jokes that he must read the Federal Register at bedtime."

Among Bolten's major achievements as deputy chief of staff: "He had a leading hand in drawing up Bush's economic proposals and plans for the new Department of Homeland Security."

His nomination at the time was hailed by conservatives, who saw him as a true believer.

Bolten's main task in his new job was putting together -- then trying to spin -- the notoriously unrealistic annual presidential budget requests.

As Dana Milbank wrote in early 2005, after Bolten held an hour-long briefing on Bush's 2006 budget: "The theme repeated itself throughout Bolten's briefing: Potential good news was embraced, and potential bad news was left out of the equation."

Here is Bolten's official bio .

Who Was Andy Card?

William Douglas took a stab at profiling the unforthcoming chief of staff for Knight Ridder Newspapers just two weeks ago, and wrote: "White House Chief of Staff Andrew Card sometimes sounds like a man about to lose his job.