Scottie beams up

The Mandarin has been waiting for the other shoe to drop, but so far it looks like the old "deckchairs on the Titanic" routine except for the departure of long-suffering Press Secretary Scott McClellan.

Otherwise Shrub's much-anticipated White House staff clean-up, shake-up, fix-up looks more like Dorothy is still in Oz: "Scarecrow Rove, give some of your straw to Tin Man Kaplan. Cowardly Lion Rumsfeld, you're still doing a heck of a job. Toto Gonzalez, you make sure Wicked Witch Fitzgerald and his flying monkeys don't kidnap us and send us all to Munchkinland."

Toto, we're not in Kansas any more. Well, some of us aren't....

Original photo caption: White House Press Secretary Scott McClellan steps aboard Air Force One at Andrews Air Force Base near Washington, April 19, 2006. (Jason Reed/Reuters)


UPDATE: The incomparable Ann Telnaes has a slightly different "slant" on the McClellan departure - click here.