Bush Administration: Arrogant or Incompetent?

Last night, on The Daily Show, former US Senator (D-NC) and John Kerry running mate John Edwards, said he believed the Bush administration is not as arrogant as it is incompetent. By me, the arrogance of the Bush administration is the one factor that has guaranteed its incompetence. Arrogance has allowed unqualified cronies to be placed in important positions. Rumsfeld was Cheney's crony. But giving him the job of masterminding the invasion of Iraq guaranteed that the so-called preemptive war would fail. Condoleezza Rice was the designated minder who fed GWB's ego and kept him off the sauce. But making her Secretary of State guaranteed that the United States would not only have a bungling Secretary of State but that GWB would start drinking again. Making Bush's old friend and suck-up Michael Brown head of FEMA guaranteed that FEMA would have an ineffective leader and that the organization would collapse during an emergency Giving suck-up Chertoff the job that had been vacated by suck-up Ridge guaranteed that Homeland Security would secure nothing other than Chertoff's employment. Julie Myers was a special assistant handling personnel issues for Bush when she was picked to head Immigration and Customs Enforcement. The list goes on and on. And now, at the exquisite moment when all the scandals, mismanagement and incompetence have come home to roost, in a masterstroke of arrogant stupidity and political favoritism, Ellan Miers has been appointed to the Supreme Court by the ur-putz, ne plus ultra, George W. Bush. It is no wonder the Bush administration is incompetent. The White House has conducted its affairs as though it were a frat house with all the funloving pranksters, excesses, drinking, and strange bedfellows that life in a frat house implies. It's hard to believe it's only been eight months and seventeen days since George W. Bush was inaugurated. So many offenses…so little time.