Only women now allowed to speak with the President

Insight on the News claims:

The sources said Mr. Bush maintains daily contact with only four people: first lady Laura Bush, his mother, Barbara Bush, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and Undersecretary of State Karen Hughes. The sources also say that Mr. Bush has stopped talking with his father, except on family occasions.

So, Bush isn't talking to Cheney anymore? Well, the President's not a quick learner, but it's apparently sunk in finally that something's wrong with Cheney, and the foreign policy gang he brought with him or no good.

This reminds me of some episode in history, but I can't remember which. Was there a Turkish sultan or a doomed Chinese emperor who grew so angry with his viziers that he replaced all the men with women who would tell him just what he wanted to hear?

Condi's main job during the first term was reassuring Bush that he wasn't too lazy and ignorant to be President, keeping Bush from exclaiming,

"I had this terrible nightmare. I was back in college during Finals Week and I hadn't studied all semester and I didn't know anything. But then I woke up and realized I wasn't in college anymore. So I felt relieved, but then I suddenly realized I was the President of the U.S. and I hadn't studied anything my whole life and I don't know anything about anything!"

How in the world did this nimrod become President? That's actually a serious question. The Presidential nomination process is broken. Nominees get anointed way too early, such as GWB in 1999 or Kerry at the Iowa caucuses in January 2004, and then momentum carries them the rest of the way.

The weird thing about GWB is that because he was a famous man's son, lots of important men had come in contact with him during the first 50 years or so of his life, and none of them had ever thought of him as making a good President. His partners in owning the Texas Rangers, for example, made him "co-managing director," but Bush was just the public facade and the other managing director made all the decisions.

The one formidable man who saw something in him was Karl Rove and he merely envisioned Bush as a good candidate. He put together a resume for Bush: Be a President's eldest son, own a baseball team, get elected governor of a big state in 1994, get re-elected in 1998, beat Al Gore in 2000. This sounds like a plausible track record for a President to the average voter.

Unfortunately, Rove's values corrupted the bigshots in the GOP in 1999. They bought into the idea that Bush's name recognition would carry him to victory amongst the ignorant voters. They failed the country by refusing to worry about whether Bush would make a good President. Lots of people they knew had been exposed to Bush and could have told them that Bush was too lazy and dim to be President, but that little detail got lost in dreaming about Bush as a candidate.

My published articles are archived at iSteve.com -- Steve Sailer