Why Does Elizabeth Bumiller Still Have a Job (Why Oh Why Can't We Have a Better Press Corps?)

A zero-information puff piece on Josh Bolten:

Joshua Brewster Bolten: Longtime Ally, Now a Top Aide - New York Times: Joshua B. Bolten... insider credentials... ability to soothe Congress... amused his 500-member staff by renaming his weekend rock band Deficit Attention Disorder... Mr. Thune said, "he probably will do a better job of reaching out to Congress." Supporters... insisted he would revitalize a moribund policy operation... Bolten, the influential but publicly invisible White House deputy chief of staff in Mr. Bush's first term, would help formulate and drive legislation in a way that Andrew H. Card Jr., the outgoing chief of staff, did not. As deputy chief of staff, Mr. Bolten scheduled the president's almost daily 45 minutes of domestic "policy time" in the Oval Office... Cesar V. Conda... "He was really the maestro of the policy process. I was there a month after Harriet Miers took over, and it wasn't the same."... Bolten... this administration's deal closer... what Mr. Bolten believes is something of a mystery...

With one nugget of reality picked up by Dan Gross:

Daniel Gross: March 26, 2006 - April 01, 2006 Archives: PERSONAL RESPONSIBILITY: A great nugget in Elisabeth Bumiller's highly predictable puffer on newly appointed chief of staff Josh Bolten.

But the question is whether Mr. Bolten is the man to right a listing presidency, and whether his skills, instincts and access to Mr. Bush are enough to overcome public anger over the war in Iraq and the growing questions in Washington about the competence of the West Wing staff. Mr. Bolten, after all, has been with Mr. Bush from his first days as a presidential candidate, and in the last three years has presided over the biggest budget deficits in the history of the United States.

"The last time Josh was in here, I said, 'How can a guy as smart as you are come up with such bad results?' " said Senator Kent Conrad of North Dakota, the ranking Democrat on the Budget Committee. "He said, 'You can't pin this one on me.' "

Right, he just works there. But wait a second. Republican wise man Vin Weber tells Caroline Daniel of the Financial Times that "in the last five years Josh has been the number one domesitc and economy policy thinker in the White House."

Sounds like the perfect man for the job.