President Bush seems determined to keep his embattled chief of staff, John Sununu, even though most of that staff has concluded the chief has become a distinct liability as a result of his penchant for traveling first class.

Maybe the president has figured out that the Sununu problem has already solved itself.

Most of Sununu's controversial travel involved trips made on behalf of the Republican Party. We suspect the president knows there's not likely to be a great clamor in rank-and-file Republicans for a speaker who has come to embody privilege and arrogance.