Lady Dragonfly wrote:You don't have to be a genius to be ruthless.
No, but you must have a certain degree of intelligence and not be a moron. I'm not asserting that Dubya is a genius. I'm only suggesting he isn't a moron.
As to "savvy", well, please give me a real example of his wisdom and comprehensive knowledge to prove your point. Use the books you are referring to, if you will.
I already did, above, in one little quote from Tempting Faith. Bush quite accurately (and cynically) assesses the response of the Christian Far Right and how he could spin an amount of money already existing in the budget to them and make it sound like it's new funds, when it isn't. Again, this isn't "wisdom." That isn't the subject of this thread. It's whether he's intelligent or a moron, and a puppet-on-strings moron would have simply referred the matter to one of his cabinet, then read the results. Bush said what was going to be done, and how it would be done.
His former cronies are still faithful republicans who are bound to support their boss and his failed policies even after they were kicked out. They may distance themselves from some obvious blunders in order to preserve their own political skin, and criticize some tactics, but not the general course, God forbid that. Am I wrong?
Um, yes. Joseph Wilson, who worked for Bush as an ambassador of high standing, and before that was the top US diplomat in Iraq for several years, left the administration and accused it of lying after he provided Dubya with solid info that the Niger uranium-to-Iraq shipment deal with a forgery. Bush ignored this info and declared that the shipment was real, and one very good reason to invade. When Wilson went public with his criticisms, several highly placed Bush administration officials leaked the info to the press that his wife was working for the CIA--while she was overseas, on assignment, nearly costing several agents their lives. I suggest purchasing Wilson's "The Politics of Truth."
Also worth purchasing is former Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill's The Price of Loyalty. He criticizes Bush and the entire cabinet endlessly for making all decisions based on ideology without regard to facts. That's the subject of his book, detalied with plenty of data, at great length.
Those are the best, but there are other good ones, too. Note that both Wilson and O'Neill easily fulfill the role of insiders who napalm the administration for a host of stunning failures.
He shuffled thousands of jobs inside his goverment? Smart move to get rid of people who might get in a way of his stubborn incompetence. But nothing original.
It is original, in terms of presidential history. It also corrected the mistake of Lord Ace, that Bush's White House prior to 9/11 accomplished nothing. So whether you like the results or not, the fact that the pre-9/11 Bush White House was very busy and accomplished a great deal, including the replacement of tens of thousands of employees, certainly shows that it was busy putting in place the structure to make a US Bush and his fellow zealots wanted. They have largely succeeded in that.