Politics & Power Quote by Andrew Card

It is the rare Washington joke that lands because it’s truer than it is funny: a preemptive scapegoat audition delivered with a grin. Andrew Card, speaking as a seasoned operator inside the machinery of power, isn’t really talking about approval ratings. He’s talking about gravity. Peaks don’t hold. After a public honeymoon, the only plausible narrative is decline, and decline demands a culprit.

The line works because it’s self-aware in a way politics usually isn’t allowed to be. Card names the quiet rule everyone in an administration understands: credit rises to the top, blame sinks to the staff. By volunteering himself as the fall guy, he signals loyalty while also indicting the culture that requires fall guys in the first place. It’s both gallows humor and a subtle warning to onlookers: don’t confuse polling highs with durable legitimacy, and don’t mistake the president’s image for the administration’s actual internal balance of risk.

Context matters. Card was George W. Bush’s chief of staff, a role designed to absorb impact. He’s also referencing a departure ("She’s leaving") that implicitly marks the end of an era of clean headlines, suggesting that personnel changes are timed like exits from a party just before the cops arrive. The punchline - “They’re gonna blame Andy Card!” - is less self-deprecation than a diagnostic: Washington maintains the illusion of presidential omnipotence by offloading messy accountability onto aides. The joke flatters the boss, protects the institution, and still manages to smuggle in a critique of how shallow political judgment can be when the numbers inevitably turn.