It's Jimmy Carter time

After watching a rebroadcast of "ENRON: The Smartest Guys in the Room" http://www.pbs.org/independentlens/enron/ my husband was not amused, indeed appalled, when I reminded him where Al Gonzales worked before he became acquainted with GW ... that's right, as counsel for ENRON (take what comfort you can from the lessons he learned there).

Who was it who said that vice is often virtue in isolation, taken to an extreme? Sounds like Chesterton, who if he said it, surely did so far more eloquently. Still, it's a point. Loyalty is normally virtuous, but when adhered to as an end in itself, rather than as a means to the Good, it can become vice. In the president's case, a self-destructive one.

Bush's loyalty has a strong whiff of vanity about it. If he lets people like El Bufon go, he'll be admitting that his critics were right. For him, that's the worst thing that can possibly happen. Better that the country should be effectively without an AG for the balance of his term. If you've ever wondered what Churchill would have been like with an IQ in double digits, look no farther than 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. The guy has all of Churchill's obstinacy without his frontal lobes. And, of course, Gonzales himself isn't loyal to Bush at all. If he were, he would have left of his own accord and relieved his chief of an albatross.

"Who was it who said that vice is often virtue in isolation, taken to an extreme? Sounds like Chesterton, who if he said it, surely did so far more eloquently. Still, it's a point. Loyalty is normally virtuous, but when adhered to as an end in itself, rather than as a means to the Good, it can become vice. In the president's case, a self-destructive one." I have to kind of agree with this point. Obviously, hiring and keeping people who are bad at their jobs, but loyal to you, is a bad governmental strategy; but if nothing else, I kind of have to admire the fact that the president will show loyalty back, and not just expect it from others. Not that I'm justifying anything, I'm just saying. God bless.

Well on thing is for sure. Every administration from here on forward will clear the decks of all positions that 'serve at the request of the president'.

KIm- Bush has often made the point that he stopped drinking by embracing Christianity. Now that's a very good thing. Bush strongly believes he did it through his own sheer will, without help of anyone else(spare God)-no 12 stepping, no psychology, no therapy of any kind. Problem becomes that he really believes he can do anything he puts his mind to, and that he knows better than anyone else. But at his core he has never really dealt with the reasons why he was an alcoholic. It wasn't so apparent during 2000 or 2004(or may be the opponents were do awful, waht difference would it have made?), but some of his speeches now reek of "I'm the President! I KNOW better than any of you!" arrogance. On immigration, his spiel about "Iraqis yearning the breath free!", the Miers apppintment, his holding fast to hacks like Brown and Gonzalez. Bush doesn't deal with adversity, he just ignores it and keeps going. It's clear anyone bringing in a divergent or contrary opinion to Bush is either ignored or gone.