The hubris of Andrew Card's schedule

(April 3, 2006)
Among the many articles commenting on the resignation of President Bush’s Chief of Staff, Andrew Card, was a brief piece about his schedule. According to the writer, Mr. Card’s normal routine was to arise at 4:10 AM and ‘continue taking calls’ until eleven PM. He had maintained this killing pace for the past five years. What kind of capacity for creative though and reasoned judgment could this schedule have fostered?

If physiology and psychology tell us anything, they remind us that we are physical beings as well as mental (and political?) ones. These are interlinked, mutually dependent elements of a single system. Ignoring our physical being degrades our mental capacities.

I claim no moral high ground in this matter. My typical day begins at 6 AM (with Ron’s AV briefing, for regular readers) and rarely ends before midnight. But the decisions I may are of small moment, compared with those entrusted to Mr. Card and now to Joshua Bolton, his successor.

I would encourage Mr. Bolton to make fewer decisions with the hope that he might make better ones.