Stravo wrote:I guess this is his attempt to bring the country back together. He spent 4 years tearing us apart with his craptastic policies, his cabinet advisors who ignored or outright lied about the policies they were running (rummy and Ashcroft) and general stubborness in the face of any criticism.
Sorry. Not feeling it.
I concur.
As I see it, one of the biggest mistakes Bush made in 2000 was appointing people to important government posts who were of the same-mind set as he was. As Cal Omas stated in the 14th NJO novel,
Destiny's Way, the opposition inside the tent with you. I totally agree with this; you
need to have people of different viewpoints who tell you the things you don't find pleasant or do not want to hear. Such is the job of diversity.
But in choosing most of his dad's pals and other neo-cons and religious nutcases (which, to digress for a moment, I am highly skeptical that he actually believes in. Perhaps he truly does believe that God is telling him what to do -- which should have, had he been any other man, gotten locked up in a mental institution -- but with the red swath that the Republicans cut through the country, I see it more as simply an attempt to appeal to his base of voters) and few to no people with differeing viewpoints, he insured that there would be no internal opposition to their shared agendas; they agreed with everything he said and told him what he wanted to hear. Those that opposed it either left (Clarke) or were humiliated in the international community (Powell).
Getting rid of some of his Cabinet is a start, but it's not enough. Either with their replacements he gets the aforementioned opposition under his tent or he simply fills it with more neocons, big businessmen, religious folk.
