Through one full term and the first year of the second, a signature of this administration was the indifference -- even contempt -- it showed for the capital's political and media culture, and for the endless flow of commentary and unsolicited advice that its inhabitants deliver daily to all presidents.

Bush, his advisers say, has by no means changed his view of what he derisively calls the "chattering class." But the Card move is only the latest sign that -- with his presidency under the stress of low public approval ratings, an unpopular war and a stalled legislative agenda -- Bush is more often deferring to the expectations of Washington conventional wisdom.

On Iraq, he has not shifted policy but has modified his message in response to legislators and GOP operatives who said he needed to more directly address the arguments of opponents instead of simply disparaging them as defeatists. On his domestic agenda -- after last year proved that doubters of both parties on Capitol Hill were right when they said his planned overhaul of Social Security was far too ambitious -- Bush has returned this year with a series of small proposals such as incentives for alternative energy sources.

At the same time, the president who set out five years ago to circumvent what he considered the "filter" of Washington's mainstream media, has started having off-the-record, get-to-know-you-better chats with White House reporters.

"When you run into brick walls, you need to figure out ways around it," said a high-ranking administration official, who acknowledged that a White House that once prided itself on tuning out the views of op-ed pages and cable talk shows is now more likely to tune in. "Part of what you are seeing is some adjustment to the political realities."

These accommodations are of the sort that many presidents have made before, and Bush's steps should not be overstated. He has not summoned a respected Capitol Hill figure to join his staff, as Ronald Reagan did when he tapped Howard Baker as his chief of staff after the Iran-contra scandal in 1987. He did not invite a well-known figure from the other party into his fold, as Bill Clinton did when he recruited commentator David Gergen to help right a stumbling presidency in 1993.

What's more, Bush's team well knows that making nods to inside-Washington expectations can affect its political fortunes only at the margins. As Bush himself said at a news conference last week, his "political capital" is nearly all invested in Iraq, and that war is almost certainly what will determine his political success or failure in the balance of his presidency.

Still, longtime Bush observers are struck by the stylistic changes on display.

"The first term was about discipline, driven by a big event -- Sept. 11 -- that shaped the era, and maybe it saved them for a while," said Ed Rogers, a Republican with close ties to the White House. "It allowed them to do things that were inconsistent with the currents and ways of Washington. Now absent a big event that has upset the political order and laws of political physics, they are back playing by the rules that govern this universe."

Ari Fleischer, Bush's spokesman in the first term, said the president is simply conforming to a new political reality. "Tough times force you to adjust," he said. "When times are tough and poll numbers are down . . . the president is more open to change for whatever good comes with that change."

Fleischer said there is no doubt that the Card resignation was at least partly the result of Republican calls for a staff shake-up. "There was a drumbeat out there that the president's staff could not miss and Bush could not miss," he said. Publicly, White House officials said it was Card who decided to resign, but a top aide said Bush gradually came to the conclusion that it was the right thing to do.

The president-vs.-Washington battle is not a new phenomenon. Washington has long had its own unique culture governed by a set of unspoken but generally understood political and social mores. By custom, presidents are expected to reach out to the social and political elite. The people in that elite almost always have the same advice: Listen to the top pundits, do more to reach across the partisan aisle, embrace foreign travel, shake up the staff when polls go in the tank. Most recent presidents, to some extent, came to town intent on playing by their own set of rules, and most end up striking some sort of truce.

"There are certain lessons you learn," said Leon E. Panetta, who became Clinton's second chief of staff in 1994 after an unseasoned White House staff made many errors in the first year. Presidents such as Bush and Clinton, who came from outside Washington, "kinda look down on Washington," Panetta added, but ultimately realize that "if you do not learn how to work in the Washington setting, it will basically eat you up."

Bush brings some personal history to the subject. After watching the travails of his father's presidency, he came to town with an attitude that bad decisions are often made when presidents pay too much attention to party insiders who wring their hands or don't dare to take chances, longtime aides said. He considered many in Washington too quick to turn on friends and their core principles during troubled times, and too scared to "shape history."

Bush's strategy often worked, according to John D. Podesta, a former Clinton chief of staff. But even some Republicans said it was less the result of Bush's strategy than the Sept. 11 attacks, which spurred twin emotions of fear and patriotism among voters and in Congress that allowed Bush to set the agenda and strike a defiant stance. One person close to Bush said this created a false sense of power and success at the highest reaches of the White House.

Bush's fatal mistake, Podesta said, was going too far in the direction of avoiding, if not alienating, important people in Washington. "You have to tip your hat enough to the chattering class so they don't spend every day thinking about how to flay you," Podesta said.

The Card resignation by itself does not signal a radical shift for this White House. But aides said more changes will come and that Bush is strongly considering adding one or two well-known Republicans to help soothe relations with Congress.

Card, known around the West Wing as "Secretary Card" for his service as Transportation Secretary to President George H.W. Bush, served for nearly triple the average tenure of a White House chief of staff. He is spoken of worshipfully by his underlings, and is one of the few White House officials that other aides will tell you they love. But in the lobbyist/strategist/pollster coterie, he was getting the bulk of the blame for the White House's recent self-inflicted wounds.

"No one wants to leave a White House, particularly this White House - it's hard leaving the family," said one of the few people privy to what really happened. "Andy was just wise enough to push the President to say, 'This is a good time to change.'" A wily veteran of Massachusetts politics, Card has been predicting his own departure since Nov. 1, 2001, when he told a Boston audience, "The half-life for a chief of staff is two years... There are very few people who had the experience I am having that survived very long, and that is appropriate. There is no security. I will not vest in the pension system at the White House."

Bush says he and Card had been talking about the transition for three weeks, but the 8:30 a.m. announcement was a surprise to almost everyone in Washington. "On most days," Bush said with Card, 58, at his right hand and Bolten, 51, at his left, "Andy is the first one to arrive in the West Wing and among the last to leave. And during those long days over many years I've come to know Andy as more than my Chief of Staff. He is leaving the White House, but he will always be my friend. Laura and I have known Andy and his wife, Kathi, for more than 20 years, and our close friendship will continue."

The change, effective on April 15, followed a waterfall of leaks from advisers close to the White House that Bush was finally considering changes at the top after resisting them ever since struggling with the Hurricane Katrina aftermath in September. The outcome showed the strength of Deputy Chief of Staff Karl Rove, who along with Vice President Cheney is the last standing of the Oval Office inner circle.

Anticipating coverage of whether Card was forced out, the Republican National Committee said, in talking points distributed this morning to frequent talk show guests who are supportive of the administration, "He was not fired." The talking point, provided to TIME by a recipient, went on: "Does the President think that Andy Card is to blame for the difficulties he has faced this year, especially the poor response during Katrina, Harriet Miers, and the recent Dubai parts fiasco?" In short, the answer was no. "Andy Card has been a terrific Chief of Staff, and he has led the White House team through many very difficult challenges for more than five and a half years," the document says. "He did it with great skill and decency, and he will leave with the President's and the country's gratitude. "

Bolten, who brings a sly and dry humor to a back-breaking job (and start counting the number of times you read he's a Harley-riding bachelor), is a former Goldman Sachs investment banker who was policy director of Bush's 2000 campaign and was his first deputy chief of staff for policy. So he is steeped in the current system. As a further sign of stability amidst change, White House insiders predicted that Bolten's successor will be his deputy, Joel Kaplan - a veteran of both the Marine Corps and Bolten's policy shops in Austin and the West Wing. Officials said Bolten will look at the White House from top to bottom and may make changes of his own, but a radical realignment would shock people quite close to Bush.

Speaking to the Federalist Society in 2003, Card described how Bush starts each weekday when he's in town. "The President shows up in the Oval Office between quarter of seven and seven o'clock in the morning, and I'm there to greet him," Card said. "One of the greatest privileges that anyone can have in any democracy is to say, 'Good morning, Mr. President.'" He told other audiences that someone had to be sure the President got a haircut regularly, and that someone was him. Bolten may delegate the haircut scheduling. But the President can be confident that his agenda and the White House will continue being steered by a like-minded confidant who was present at the creation.

If this is what passes for a shake-up in this administration, the next two and a half years are going to be grim indeed. This is a meaningless change, and it simply sends the message that Mr. Bush lacks the gumption to trade in anyone in the comforting, friendly cast of characters who have kept him cocooned since his first inauguration.

It's hard to figure out what unmet need this change is supposed to fill. There's been a lot of talk about how exhausted the original Bush team is. But Mr. Bolten ought to be as pooped as everybody else. It takes just as much energy to put together an out-of-whack, fiscally ruinous budget as it does to mess up an invasion or ignore a cataclysmic hurricane.

Mr. Bolten has been giving the president advice for years, and the result has been a deficit estimated at $371 billion. Perhaps he'll come up with a better approach in his new job. We've heard that under Mr. Card's watch, aides wound up showing Mr. Bush videos of TV news coverage of Hurricane Katrina to convince their boss that it really was a problem. Maybe Mr. Bolten can start the next budget discussion with some audiovisual aids - like an abacus.

Nigeria, which has been pressed by Washington to end Taylor's asylum there, said during the weekend that Liberia was free to take the former warlord into custody.

But on Tuesday, just as Obasanjo was scheduled to leave Abuja for Washington, Nigerian officials said Taylor had disappeared from his residence in the southeastern part of the country on Monday night.

U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said it was Nigeria's responsibility to hand over Taylor for prosecution, warning of "consequences" if it did not happen.

"We consider it a very serious matter, senator, if he has indeed escaped, very serious," Rice told Vermont Sen. Patrick Leahy, a Democrat on the Senate Appropriations Committee.

Leahy pushed Rice to cancel Obasanjo's meeting with Bush, a request Rice did not address.

Rice stressed Obasanjo had promised to closely monitor Taylor and turn him over once a new Liberian government was in place.

"If we are no longer on course for that then we will have to examine why this happened and have consequences accordingly," said Rice, without specifying what the consequences would be.

Taylor had lived in Nigeria since 2003 when he stepped down as president and after Obasanjo helped broker a peace deal to end Liberia's 14-year civil war that spilled over into nearby countries. Taylor is wanted on war crimes charges by a special U.N.-backed court in Sierra Leone.

"It is the responsibility of the Nigerian government to see that he is conveyed to the special court for Sierra Leone," McClellan said. "We expect the government of Nigeria to fulfill this commitment."

Sen. Barack Obama, an Illinois Democrat, said Bush should cancel his Obasanjo meeting to send a message that "the United States stands unequivocally for bringing Charles Taylor to justice."

"The inability of the government of Nigeria to provide adequate security around the residence of Charles Taylor, one of the world's worst war criminals, is inexcusable," Obama said.

Republican Rep. Ed Royce of California, a member of the House of Representatives International Relations Committee, said countries should not consider giving Taylor sanctuary.

"Such action will be met with stiff opposition in the U.S. Congress -- including serious sanctions," he said.

Rep. Chris Smith, the New Jersey Republican who chairs a House subcommittee on Africa, said the United States "must review our relationship with Nigeria in light of Taylor's escape and should immediately authorize a substantial financial bounty" to help ensure his capture.

Taylor is accused in Sierra Leone of supporting rebels notorious for hacking off the limbs of civilians, in exchange for diamonds to finance the Liberian conflict.

The two conflicts claimed an estimated 300,000 lives and spawned a generation of child soldiers.

"The problem for any post-Suharto government is that it is difficult to bring him to trial ... because he is still backed and supported by the military, which itself participated in the killings of tens of thousands of people," said Munarman, head of the Indonesian Legal Aid Foundation. Like Suharto, he goes by one name.

Critics say the case of Suharto and others like him highlight an inconsistency that lends credibility to charges that the trials in The Hague, Netherlands, and Iraq are "victors' justice."

In Baghdad, Saddam's tumultuous trial is continuing in fits and starts, while the effort to bring Milosevic to justice halted this month when he died in custody at the International War Crimes Tribunal.

But Suharto, 85, is among former leaders in the world who have managed to evade or delay an accounting for their alleged misdeeds.

They include Mengistu Haile Mariam, who directed the "Red Terror" of the 1970s in Ethiopia but who now lives in exile in Zimbabwe, and Chile's former dictator Augusto Pinochet, whose security forces killed more than 3,000 political opponents from 1973 to 1990, according to official reports.

There have been repeated attempts to try Pinochet, most of which failed after his attorneys argued he was too ill to stand trial. He is now free on bail after being charged in a tax-evasion case.

African leaders have been reluctant to see the continent's former presidents or dictators brought to justice, apparently fearful they would be the next accused of human rights abuses or other crimes.

Liberia's new government had been urging Nigeria to extradite Taylor, a former president accused of causing tens of thousands of deaths during his nation's civil war and of supporting rebels in neighboring Sierra Leone.

Nigeria agreed last week to hand Taylor over to the U.N. tribunal sitting in Sierra Leone. But the government Tuesday reported Taylor missing from his southern haven.

Taylor, who escaped from a Boston jail in 1985 to launch Liberia's war, has been able to tap the West African nation's treasury even from exile, according to U.N. investigators.

The U.N. Security Council had expressed concern Taylor was using "misappropriated funds" to undermine his homeland's stability in the run-up to recent elections.

In Cambodia, meanwhile, no Khmer Rouge figure has stood trial for the death of an estimated 1.7 million people in 1975-79. Khmer Rouge leader Pol Pot died in the jungle in 1998, and about a dozen top Khmer Rouge aides were to face a U.N.-assisted tribunal.

The lack of formal charges against such leaders weakens the deterrence of war crimes tribunals, said Harold Crouch, an expert on Indonesia at the Australian National University.

"Obviously the deterrent value would be much greater if they indicted all these people," Crouch said.

The number of Iraqis who perished during Saddam's rule is usually put at about 300,000, with no precise statistics available. Milosevic's wars in former Yugoslavia are said to have claimed at least 200,000 lives, although some place the figure lower.

Suharto was an unknown two-star general in 1965 when he put down a still-unexplained military mutiny that he attributed to leftist officers. Suharto seized power and launched a purge in which an estimated half-million people - mostly communists, socialists, trade unionists and other leftists - were executed, according to the Hong Kong-based Asian Human Rights Commission, a non-governmental organization.

The leaders of Indonesia's fledgling democracy set out to try Suharto for corruption, gave up, and have never sought to bring him to justice.

Several dozen officers have been tried on charges of killing hundreds of civilians in East Timor and elsewhere during Suharto's time, but all were freed.

"If you can't convict a captain, how can you convict his president?" Crouch said.