Does the president view his Cabinet differently in the second two years of his term?
Card: I’m not sure that that would be a dividing line. Any president considers his Cabinet in the context of the challenges he faces. The president has had to depend on his Cabinet to do its job, even if it wasn’t in the area of responsibility that was on the front page of the newspaper every day. I think this Cabinet has performed remarkably well. The second political cycle presents us with new opportunities, because the Senate changed again. And it turns out the Senate leadership changed, so relationships have to change in order to get things done. And then we have a crescendo of responsibility around Iraq and maybe North Korea, and an ongoing war against terrorism, and an economy that’s struggling to stay on the plus side of the equation, and an education plan that now has to be implemented, rather than just enacted. The Cabinet is remarkably stable. Fewer people are going through the turnstile than, I think, any other administration in my adult political experience. I think it’s a
