November 15, 2004, Colin Out; Condi In
The President seems not to be wasting any time in his cabinet shake-ups. Just hours after forcing/accepting the resignation of Secretary of State Colin Powell, the President announced his choice of National Security Advisor Incompentalleezza "Condi" Rice to replace him at State.
It's becoming clear that the President now wants to use his "mandate", i.e. 51% or so of the population has unequivocally endorsed his agenda of deficit spending to finance tax cuts for the super-well-off, aggressive, poorly planned foreign adventures (featuring atrocities like torture and killing of civilians), locking up citizens at whim, environmental degradation and an aggressive path toward national ruination on all spheres, and now wants to place pure, proven loyalists like Gonzales at Justice, Goss at CIA, and now, Rice at State.
You see, in this Administration, loyalty to the Emperor is what matters-- not merely loyalty to the Imperium (we won't even pretend its about loyalty to the Empire, the people, or any nonsense like that).
Frankly, I sit back here, and say this: It's Bush's team. He's entitled to staff it with people he wants. If it's a fucking disaster, it's ultimate his responsibility, even if the voters seem willing to give him a pass, be it for the actual reason (pure meanness on the part of the American people that has more than a tinge of affirmative sadism) or the perceived reason (we have everything to fear-- fear itself, swarthy people... Kerry... or any Democrat... can't protect
us the way Emperor Daddy... Junior... whatever... can) for Bush's reelection.
Our republic has survived venal people before. Of course, in general, at least those venal people usually had some basic levels of competence. We're about to see if our Founders could anticipate not merely venal people, but venal and insanely stupid and irresponsible people.
We'll likely survive this group too. However, no bets please.
Comments
Cheer up, TD. I'll throw a bone your way. Within 6 short months, a scandal will erupt that will bring the W Funhouse to a halt. Wait and see. Sure, a lot of bad things will happen before then, but the ride's coming to an end.
Posted by Hassan Bar Sinister at November 15, 2004 11:55 PM
Isn't she his mistress?
What is it with these Conn. Yankees and their obsessions with the household help?
Posted by BlackCat (the logger) at November 16, 2004 1:02 AM
So when Sharon decides that the only way to secure the West Bank is to excommunicate all the Palestinians, will Condi say "nobody told us to look at that?"
Posted by Linkmeister at November 16, 2004 1:29 AM
In fact, one could say that the distinguishing feature of this current cabinet shake-up is that he's replacing all vestiges of conflicting points of view with complete sycophants. And awarding bonus points for incompetence.
Gonzales is a bad lawyer--the death penalty memos, no less than the torture memo, say that he is a lawyer who has a) poor legal reasoning skills, b) no legal judgment, c) no ability to see the consequences of the course of action he recommends to the client, and d) no ethical sense. Sounds like a good appointment for W--put him in charge of something more important than the White House legal staff.
Condi (isn't that supposed to be "Incompetentalleezza," TD?) is a bad foreign policy scholar--I once decided to take a look at one of her articles, and it was pure dreck; she was simply incapable of stringing together a logical train of thought--and an even worse manager. She was piss-poor at managing a fairly small office coordinating policy among the intelligence/foreign policy agencies, so what does W do? Why, put her in charge of a large agency with far-flung outposts all over the world, most of whose employees hate her guts!
The one person we all thought would have to go ASAP is Tom Ridge, because his lack of competence seems so clear. And what happens? He at least doesn't seem to have been at the top of the list for pink slips. Why? Well, he's insufficiently syncophantic, but he gets bonus points for incompetence!
The reality is--Cheney is running all aspects of foreign policy, neutralizing State if he can't control it--and Karl Rove is running all aspects of domestic policy, with incompetent yes-men who are not likely to challenge either of them carrying out their directives. The cabinet actually consists of 2 people, and all these others are just second-tier senior managers with no power or policy input.
Posted by mamayo at November 16, 2004 3:25 PM
Well at least now Colin is outside the tent he's free to piss in.
Posted by Ron at November 16, 2004 3:52 PM
Likely to survive eh? I'll give you 3 t0 1 odds on the rapture begining in 2006, and takers?
Posted by Chris at November 16, 2004 10:59 PM
TD,
The Founders were optimists. They could never conceive of a crew like this one.
Posted by Glen at November 17, 2004 11:20 AM
It's Bush's team. He's entitled to staff it with people he wants. If it's a fucking disaster, it's ultimate his responsibility.
This assumes that (1) there's anybody left to write the history; (2) there's actually a widely accepted reality to put into that history; and (3) there are enough people left who know how to read that history. If yes, then I'm betting on the old "there was a rumor, about a tumor" excuse.
Posted by Miss Authoritiva at November 17, 2004 8:44 PM
Anyone else notice how she suddenly changed fron "Condi" to "Dr. Rice"? Maybe I listen to too much NPR.
Posted by irisclara at November 19, 2004 1:23 AM
I'm sure Condi Rice is Bush's mistress.
Posted by Justwondering at November 21, 2004 6:25 AM
WHICH Bush?
Posted by the talking dog at November 21, 2004 8:22 AM