State of Chaos (Guardian UK)

[atommom]

Sometimes we have to read other countries' news to find out how messed up things truly are....


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.

Rice may have wanted to appoint as a deputy her old friend Robert Blackwill, whom she had put in charge of Iraq at the NSC. But Blackwill, a mercurial personality, allegedly assaulted a female US foreign service officer in Kuwait, and was forced to resign in November. Secretary of state Colin Powell and his deputy, Richard Armitage, presented the evidence against Blackwill to Rice. "Condi only dismissed him after Powell and Armitage threatened to go public," a state department source said.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,3604,1380713,00.html

[Broadslidin]

1. Did Adolph Hitler Surround Himself With The Same Trusted and.......

morbidly devoted incompetent underlings as Our Leader has?

[CatWoman]

2. yes he did

but there was still a lot of back biting and stabbing among them.

The story of Albert Speer comes to mind.

[Stinky The Clown]

5. I take issue with your use of "incompetent" .............

Look at just the top dogs in Chimpus Khan's administration.

Cheney: a sociopath, maybe (probably), but hardly incompetent. You probably don't agree with anything he does. I know I don't. But he is hardly incompetent.

Rumsfailed: same comments as for Cheney.

Powell: Incompetent is not the first word I think of when asked to describe Powell and I am sure you'd agree with that. Weak of conviciton? Perhaps. Compromised? Without a doubt. But essentially incompetent? Never.

Rice: Here we may well have our incompetence.

[tngledwebb]

12. In their fashion all have attained a certain level of competence,

except for Bush and Condi, of course. But even they deserve a bit of credit for occasionally managing the illusion of appearing somewhat distantly related to homo sapiens.

[atommom]

3. There are way too many parallels there for comfort.

GW clearly resents anyone who is "intellectual" or practices independent thought, and he's wiping all of the best people out of his administration. Surrounded by yes-men, he will be able to get away with a lot more ... especially if Congress doesn't start growing a spine immediately.

[madison2000]

4. Both Reps and Dems in Congress need to grow a spine n/t

and I think they will.

[tsuki]

6. This will be unpopular and I'll get flamed no doubt, but I have

wondered of late if Bush isn't surrounding himself with minorities and women because he feels he can control them, like the rooster in the barnyard.

[atommom]

7. I have no doubt that he's choosing people he expects to be able to

control. I don't know whether his ideas about gender and race are influencing his decisions, but since I know his beliefs are the polar opposite of mine, I wouldn't put it past him. Just a speculation, though.

[tsuki]

8. What I am looking at is all the praise he is getting for a diverse

cabinet.

[atommom]

9. Yep. I can't seem to give him the benefit of the doubt

and believe that he really deserves that praise.

[tsuki]

10. Thank you. Now I don't feel like such a bitch. :-)

[atommom]

11. Don't worry about it. I'm a bigger bitch.

:D