The title says it all. We spoke endlessly the past two years about the rubber stamp Congress that gave President Bush everything he wanted, but we never really talked about his tendency to give his advisers/minions whatever they wanted. This mess with the U.S. Attorneys is simply the latest manifestation of this problem. So, for a trip down memory lane, follow the jump.....
Iraq: Not that this isn't totally obvious, but he rubber-stamped both the idea of war with Iraq and every single decision that his putative second-in-command, Vice-President Dick Cheney slid under his eyes, along with Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld's asinine ideas for warfighting. He rubber-stamped fighting with too few troops, despite the pleas of those in a position to know better, Secretary of State (and former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs) Colin Powell and Army Chief of Staff Eric Shinseki. He rubber-stamped breaking up the Iraqi army, an idea that the military was opposed to. He rubber-stamped intelligence that he knew to be bad or fabricated. He rubber-stamped giving every contract to Halliburton, a decision that has cost taxpayers billions of dollars simply because they "lost it." These rubber stamps and more are a bleeding sore on the health of this nation.
National security: Apparently, Alberto and Harriet are good at getting the "stamp of approval." The torture of prisoners was rubber-stamped, despite our president's supposed deep faith. Illegal eavesdropping, searches, and intimidation was rubber-stamped. Passing off the capture of our #1 enemy, Osama bin Laden, to the Afghans was rubber-stamped. These rubber stamps have severely weakened our faith in government and the rule of law.
Hurricane Katrina: Mike Brown's hiring: rubber stamp. FEMA's farcically slow rate of response: rubber stamped by the vacation-taking, guitar-playing, president. Following Republican-oriented plan of keeping poor black Democrats from resettling: rubber stamp. Keeping Louisiana National Guard in Iraq, preventing them from helping in the rescue of fellow state citizens: rubber stamp. The president not only rubber-stamped some terrible ideas, but also has continued to demonstrate a complete lack of compassion and human charity towards people who were in part hurt by his administration's incompetence. New Orleans was written off because he rubber-stamped unqualified, incompetent, and negligent people into the key positions that help save us in times of disaster.
General executive behavior: This is going to encompass the current scandal, dealings with Congress, etc. The president rubber-stamped the Alito/Gonzales/Cheney idea of the unitary executive, a term the president probably couldn't explain even if you gave him a dictionary, turned it to the letter "U", and spelled the word for him. He rubber-stamped disastrous tax cuts for the rich. He rubber-stamped lax homeland security bills that did nothing to ensure homeland security. He rubber-stamped farm subsidies and steel tariffs. And now he rubber-stamped this stupid, unethical, and highly political firing of eight U.S. attorneys, who by and large did excellent jobs. Are we seeing a picture forming?
It goes well without saying that nothing from this administration surprises us anymore, but it is disturbing nonetheless that an idea, virtually any idea, got a rubber-stamp from the president so long as it came from the right people (Condi, Dick, Alberto, Harriet, Karl, Don, and Scooter). The lack of vetting for ideas is astonishing, as is the small group of people who handle everything in the administration. Yeah, Clinton's early ways of having everyone in sight vet everything to death was not a good plan, but having a small cadre of people do all the decision-making is unhealthy.
A couple of weeks ago, I put up a diary that got little attention, but in which I highlighted the history of impeachment and listed the two main offenses under which it could be achieved. This issue with the U.S. Attorneys has been spun by the right as "business as usual," with not just comparisons to Clinton's 1993 housecleaning (which was at the BEGINNING of his term), but also the White House Travel Office firings. In what dreamland do the two even come close to being a reasonable comparison? One is an office that arranges travel for reporters and interfaces with protocol officers in states or other nations. The other one is the very embodiment of our legal system.
Perhaps the ultimate symbol of how badly things are rubber-stamped by this president comes in the case of the Nevada USA's firing, where the Deputy Attorney General Paul McNulty wrote in an email, "I'm a little skittish about Bogden...I'll admit have not looked at his district's performance." And yet Bush approved his firing too. Just another day of using the rubber-stamp for Alberto's wishes.
Getting back to the main point here, the serious problems we face in the world today are a direct result of this process of not thinking things through, of just taking somebody's idea at face value and agreeing to it. We're stuck in Iraq, Afghanistan is backsliding, we are fast becoming loathed by the entire world, our allies are backing out of the alliances they formed with us in the wake of 9/11, our economy is owned by the Saudis and the Chinese, and our political discourse has all the maturity of two seven-year-olds fighting on the playground. When critical thinking goes out the window and gets replaced with posturing, flexing, bragging, and ideology first, last and always, we lose.