Rearranging the Deck Chairs?

Rove remains at the forefront of Bush's team, and officials played down the notion that he had been demoted."

Wall Street Journal: "The shift of Mr. Rove out of his second-term role as deputy chief of staff for policy could help address a separate problem: concern that White House policies too often are perceived as partisan and divisive."

Slate's John Dickerson : "Ari Fleischer infuriated the press corps (and me in particular) with his double talk and the sprig of sanctimony he included in every dish. But Ari was a veteran of years of policy battles on the Hill; he could spar from a posture of strength with the generalists in the White House press corps. McClellan, by contrast, was well-liked during his three years behind the podium but spent much of his time there in a fetal position. He got pounded day after day because the president didn't allow him to do much more than repeat the talking points. He was not just robotic but rock 'em sock 'em robotic. . . .

"Bush and his top appointees continue to see the press as adversaries rather than fair-minded umpires or legitimate critics."

Now for my daily dispatch:

He was painful to watch at times, gamely repeating the same stock phrases under a barrage of hostile media fire, grasping for new ways to deliver the same non-answers.

Two days after deflecting questions about his own future by stiffly insisting that "I never speculate about personnel matters," Scott McClellan resigned yesterday as White House press secretary amid warm words from President Bush but less than flattering reviews from the Fourth Estate The administration kept McClellan "on a short string," said ABC's Sam Donaldson, a longtime White House correspondent, "and it was reflected in his inability to tame the press corps and keep them in bounds. Scott didn't have that ability. He was probably ill-cast to be a press secretary."

Michael Wolff, who recently profiled McClellan for Vanity Fair, said the spokesman's appointment showed "a certain amount of contempt for the press on the part of the White House. . . . It was a comedy, a farce, actually. He could not do the job, bottom line. He came out every day and he couldn't talk through a sentence."

But former colleagues of McClellan, an affable Texan who has worked for Bush since he was governor, say he acquitted himself well in what has become an increasingly difficult and contentious job.

"There's so much more incoming to the briefing room and a more antagonistic relationship between the White House and the media," said former Pentagon spokeswoman Torie Clarke. "I think he did as good or a better job as anyone could have done. I'm sure it was frustrating for him, but he seldom let it show."

Ari Fleischer, who was McClellan's boss when Fleischer held the spokesman's job, said his successor enjoyed "the trust and confidence of the president" and "was flawless in his performance, especially when you read the transcripts." But asked about McClellan's apparent discomfort at the podium, Fleischer said: "Whether or not a press secretary thrives in the back-and-forth, pugilistic environment of the television age is always going to be an issue."

McClellan's tenure coincided with a rough reelection campaign and the lowest approval ratings of Bush's term in the wake of Hurricane Katrina, the Harriet Miers nomination and the continued carnage in Iraq. While Fleischer said McClellan would have preferred to stay on until year's end, his departure was engineered during a shake-up ordered by the new chief of staff, Josh Bolten. "I didn't need much encouragement to make this decision, even though you all kept tempting me," McClellan told reporters aboard Air Force One.