Washington Vision
November 23rd, 2006Forgive me, do, for yesterday’s lack of entry. I adopted a kitten who had been abandoned and spent the evening washing Lina and helping her become accustomed to her new home. Today is El Dia del Pabo, and so I won’t spend too much time writing, but there are a couple of interesting things out there, and this is one of them.
The treatment of his war minister connotes something deeply wrong with George W. Bush’s presidency in its sixth year. Apart from Rumsfeld’s failures in personal relations, he never has been anything short of loyal in executing the president’s wishes. But loyalty appears to be a one-way street for Bush. His shrouded decision to sack Rumsfeld after declaring he would serve out the second term fits the pattern of a president who is secretive and impersonal.
Lawrence Lindsey had been assured that he would be retained as the president’s national economic adviser, but received word on Dec. 5, 2002, at around 5 p.m. that he would be fired the next day. Before Treasury Secretary Paul O’Neill embarked on a dangerous mission to Afghanistan, he requested and received assurances that he would still have a job when he returned. Instead, he was dismissed in tandem with Lindsey.
Bob Novak thinks the President did wrong and is going public with it. That’s interesting and displays, I think, a newfound distaste for Bush among the hard-right in Congress and the public policy realm in general. I’d note, however, that it’s pretty off for Novak to call Rumsfeld the “War Minister.” I don’t know if that’s what Bush considered Rummy and now Gates, or if that’s what Rumsfeld considers himself, but if it is then that’s a sign of serious vision problems in Washington.
Howard Dean recently got into it with James Carville, per Slate, and I’d urge you to read it. I take Dean’s side in this spat, as his philosophy of building the Party everywhere is going to reward Democrats in 2008, 2010, 2012 and beyond! (and the past, too, as it certainly helped us in 2006.)