Daily Briefing: ‘Brain Drain’

• Resignation of Andrew Card could be the beginning of a “second-term overhaul.” Senior official: “The president’s style is not Saturday Night Massacre.” [WP, NYT, W$J, LAT, USAT]
• Resignation of Card indicates that Bush is increasingly “deferring to the expectations of Washington conventional wisdom.” Anonymous official: “Part of what you are seeing is some adjustment to the political realities.” Ari Fleischer: “There was a drumbeat out there that the president’s staff could not miss and Bush could not miss.” [WP]
• FISA court judges voice opposition to warrentless eavesdropping. [NYT]
• Shiites contend that Bush opposes the Iraqi prime minister. [NYT]
• Department of Homeland Security is experiencing a dangerous “brain drain.” [USAT]
• Democratic leaders set to unveil plan for “real security,” though “most of the proposals are not new.” [NYT]

• Senate and House Republicans proceed with separate views of immigration. [NYT, W$J]
• Joshua Bolten “is a Bush loyalist, known as self-effacing and efficient, not especially ideological, not a promoter of his own agenda, a quiet professional in a town filled with vast egos.” [WP, NYT, USAT, LAT]
• Now Card can be friends with Bush. As he told C-SPAN last year, “The president is my friend and I do not want to let him down. But I am not his friend, I am a staffer.” [WP]
• Senate will consider guest-worker proposal today. [WP]
• Senate rejects independent office for ethics issues. [WP, W$J]
• Congressional record in Supreme Court case includes debate that never occurred. [WP]

READ MORE: Democrats, Republicans, SCOTUS, White House, andrew card, ari fleischer, eavesdropping, ethics, fisa, george w. bush, homeland security, house, immigration, iraq, josh bolten, nsa, senate, shittes