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| Category: Politics, Holistic |
Date published: October 24, 2004 |
Bush Said He made Bad Appointees - Only Mistake in 4 Years
by Evelyn Pringle
(Email: epringle05@yahoo.com)
During the second debate, when asked by a member of the audience to list 3 mistakes he made and then tell what he did to right them, Bush could only come up with one partial mistake at best. He said: "I made some mistakes in appointing people, but I'm not going to name them. I don't want to hurt their feelings on national TV."
What a great guy; putting other people's feelings before his own.
I must be nosey because I can't stop wondering who he meant. Maybe I can figure it out.
Perhaps it was his former counter-terrorism chief, Richard Clarke, who wrote a book that said that the entire Bush administration totally ignored terrorism and bin Laden before Sept 11, and that Bush's number one objective was to find a reason to go to war in Iraq.
Or maybe it was George Tenet, who after being blamed for providing bad intelligence that resulted in the war in Iraq, said he left the administration to spend more time with his family, and who was later amazed to find out that Bush received raw intelligence data from his secret in-house spy ring, that was never seen or vetted by Tenet's CIA.
It could be John DiIulio, the director of his faith-based initiative, who after leaving said, "There is no precedent in any modern White House for what is going on in this one: a complete lack of a policy apparatus. What you've got is everything - and I mean everything - being run by the political arm. It's the reign of the Mayberry Machiavellis." And who left the job feeling that the initiative was not about "compassionate conservatism," as promised, but rather a political giveaway to the Christian right, a way to consolidate and energize that part of the base. Or maybe Bush was thinking about Paul O'Neill, his treasury secretary who after being driven out of office, wrote that Bush with his Cabinet was "like a blind man in a roomful of deaf people." And also said that Bush came into office with twin obsessions, tax cuts, no matter whether they could be afforded or not, and toppling Saddam Hussein.
But then he may have been thinking of Lawrence Lindsey, his top economic advisor, until he got canned for saying in public that his estimates showed the Iraq war would cost $200 billion.
Or, maybe it was Christie Whitman, who told people on the day that she resigned as administrator of the EPA, that in meetings if she'd ask if there were any facts to support a case, she got accused of disloyalty.
It could also have been Thomas Scully, lead negotiator for the Medicare Prescription Drug Bill who was found guilty of threatening to fire Medicare Actuary Richard Foster if he gave members of Congress the true estimates for the bill ($150 billion more) before it was passed. Shortly after which, Scully left the White House and took a job with the same companies he negotiated the legislation with.
Heck, it might even be Ted Olson, who was appointed to the position of Solicitor General, after arguing the election recount case for Bush in the Supreme Court, and who must have left in the dark of night because nobody but me seemed to even notice that he was gone.
This is really difficult. So many appointees have come and gone. That said, I give up.
By Evelyn Pringle
e.pringle@sbcglobal.net
Miamisburg, OH 45342
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