George Buxh's recipe for disaster...Sid Blumenthal:

[JohnnyRingo]

A state of chaos

Sidney Blumenthal

George Bush has purged the last of his father's senior advisers, handing over control to his neocon allies

The transition to President Bush's second term, filled with backstage betrayals, plots and pathologies, would make for an excellent chapter of I, Claudius. To begin with, Bush has unceremoniously and without public acknowledgement dumped Brent Scowcroft, his father's closest associate and friend, as chairman of the foreign intelligence advisory board. The elder Bush's national security adviser was the last remnant of traditional Republican realism permitted to exist within the administration.
At the same time the vice president, Dick Cheney, has imposed his authority over secretary of state designate Condoleezza Rice, in order to blackball Arnold Kanter, former under secretary of state to James Baker and partner in the Scowcroft Group, as a candidate for deputy secretary of state.

"Words like 'incoherent' come to mind," one top state department official told me about Rice's effort to organise her office. She is unable to assert herself against Cheney, her wobbliness a sign that the state department will mostly be sidelined as a power centre for the next four years.

<snip>

Bush has long resented his father's alter ego. Scowcroft privately rebuked him for his Iraq follies more than a year ago - an incident that has not previously been reported. Bush "did not receive it well", said a friend of Scowcroft.

<snip>

Republican elders who warned of endless war are purged. Those who advised Bush that Saddam was building nuclear weapons, that with a light military force the operation would be a "cakewalk", and that capturing Baghdad was "mission accomplished", are rewarded.

<Read entire article here:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,3604,1380713,00.html

[xchrom]

1. while 43 is nuts, assigning scowcroft with

some kind of sanity or reason belies the iran/contra president that 41 was.
republicans in TOTAL became a threat to the u.s. with the advent of reagan.
a result of the post nixon rise of corporatists within the that hateful party.

[teach1st]

2. Party unity or our nation's best interests?

Many of the top Republicans are reportedly privately unhappy with the president's policies, and yet they don't speak out publicly. Why? Is party unity more important than what's best for our nation?

In private, Baker is scathing about the current occupant of the White House. Now the one indispensable creator of the Bush family political fortunes is repudiated.

Bush has long resented his father's alter ego. Scowcroft privately rebuked him for his Iraq follies more than a year ago - an incident that has not previously been reported

The outgoing secretary of state, fighting his last battle, is leaking stories to the Washington Post about how his advice went unheeded

[xchrom]

4. don't make too much about reports of dissatisfaction with 43.

i think they are over rated -- and republicans are very disciplined.
do not expect them to break ranks.

[izzie]

6. Well he would never have been their own his own. It is the name

Envy of his father I guess.

[rooboy]

3. Rice has pleaded with Armitage to stay on....

but "he colourfully said he would not"...

Boy, things are going to be interesting in the State Dept.

[opihimoimoi]

5. WTH is going on in this foul administration?? are they fucking each others

ass or something?? They are bizzarre, brazen, uncaring, arrogant, weaselesque, selfish, and brutal. .... yet, they are there to fuck things up.

TO FOOL IS TO RULE.

[The empressof all]

9. Sounds just like corporate America to me

Wasn't it Bush's plan to ruin (run) the government like a business?

[opihimoimoi]

10. The prob is, he never was successful running anything.

[indepat]

7. So Scowcroft rebuked him for his Iraq follies and we the people gave

him a second term for his Iraq follies. We all know what this makes we the people.

[HamdenRice]

8. "Since the election, 203 US soldiers have been killed and 1,674 wounded"

nt