The Arbitrary ChuckJerry

It seems to me as if a lot of Dubya's cabinet members and appointed folks are leaving their posts heading into the second term. High level resignations recently have been Colin Powell, John Ashcroft, and Tom Ridge, but there have been many others as well including the agriculture secretary and the UN ambassador just to name a couple.

I was 6 when Reagan was reelected and clearly don't recall any shakeup. I'm thinking back to '96 when Clinton was reelected, when I was 18, and I don't remember anything quite like this either. I may be wrong, but I recall Madeline Albright and Janet Reno and obviously Al Gore being the highest ranking members for all 8 years. Again, I'm not certain of this, I just don't recall all this transition. A few guys did step down during the Clinton administration that I can recall. George Stephanopalous is on the top of that list, but I don't remember any really high ranking people leaving. Help me out here if I'm wrong.

In the Dubya era there have been resignations all over the place starting with Christie Todd-Whitman, former NJ governor turned EPA chairman who was hung out to dry by Bush, and Ari Fleischer, former press secretary who resigned fairly early on which seemed weird to me.

It seems to me from an outsiders point of view that Dubya, Big Time Cheney, Don "Rummy" Rumsfeld, and Karl Rove are running shit and anyone outside of that circle is there to simply do their job and do what they're told.

(That last sentence is awesome because it uses all three versions of the word there/their/they're in proper context. Another awesome sentence would be "I will count to two, too.")

I'm getting off track. It just seems to me that they've pushed a lot of people away from them and now that Dubya's been reelected they have no need to be nice to these people any more at all.