Surprising if true, since Pete Buttigieg should have gone under the bus already, thanks to his absentee neglect of the supply-chain crisis. With Joe Biden’s approval ratings still in search of a floor, though, inevitably the White House would look for another scapegoat to get a reset of sorts on a failing policy area. According to the Washington Post and this obvious trial balloon, Xavier Becerra’s about to explore the beauty of time with his family:

White House officials have grown so frustrated with top health official Xavier Becerra as the pandemic rages on that they have openly mused about who might be better in the job, although political considerations have stopped them from taking steps to replace him, officials involved in the discussions said.

Top White House officials have had an uneasy relationship with Becerra, the health and human services secretary, since early in President Biden’s term. But their dissatisfaction has escalated in recent months as the omicron variant has sickened millions of Americans in a fifth pandemic wave amid confusing and sometimes conflicting messages from top health officials that brought scrutiny to Biden’s strategy, according to three senior administration officials and two outside advisers with direct knowledge of the conversations.

The frustration with Becerra comes as top White House and health officials face growing criticism for health messaging missteps, as well as controversial policies about coronavirus testing and isolation. The administration has also struggled in the face of a tsunami of cases that have overwhelmed hospitals and shuttered some schools and businesses because so many workers became infected.

Becerra, a former California attorney general and longtime congressman with little health-care experience, was never given a clear role in a response that is run out of the White House, prompting defenders to say it is unfair to blame him for recent stumbles. Still, his low profile has become more confounding as the pandemic has worn on and health officials have made statements that sometimes blindsided the president and bewildered the public, some officials and outside experts say.

If the latter was the real concern, then the White House would fire Rochelle Walensky and push Anthony Fauci into retirement. Becerra is apparently more expendable, although it’s not clear why. Becerra doesn’t have any significant background in health care, but that was the case when Biden picked him for this job, too.

That fact would make a Becerra dismissal for scapegoating a bit … complicated. Biden insisted on putting Becerra into that slot mainly to conduct lawfare against the pro-life movement through ObamaCare edicts, a move that generated plenty of criticism at the time. In the middle of a pandemic, people expected a true public-health expert to get chosen to run the nation’s COVID-19 response, not a former attorney general with a radical resumé. Becerra barely survived his confirmation vote at the time, and has done nothing to distinguish himself since. As early as last May, rumors began swirling about Becerra’s standing in the Biden administration.

However, Biden made the choice to appoint an unqualified political hack to run Health and Human Services. Dumping him now would be tantamount to a double confession: first that the pandemic response has been bungled, and second that Biden should never have appointed Becerra in the first place. Neither of those sound like a great way to distance Biden from the pandemic stench, even if he might get an opportunity to reset the response, maybe, if the White House allows a new HHS Secretary to run the policy him/herself.

Clearly someone has to go, though, in the midst of this confidence-crisis cascade. It can’t be Buttigieg, because progressives have made him their darling of the future, even if Buttigieg has turned out to be every bit as incompetent as Becerra and for less reason. Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas should really be next, except that Biden’s the one running border policy and Mayorkas is stuck with it. No one’s invested in Becerra except Biden, so he’s expendable. When that proves ineffective at resetting Biden’s standing with voters, perhaps Mayorkas should still consider the joys of spending time with his family, too.