One of the more remarkable things about the Bush administration is that they have failed to groom a successor and don’t even seem to have an obvious preference for the Republican nomination in 2008. Dick Cheney has never expressed any desire to run for President and his health and poll numbers preclude him from changing his mind.
The era of Bush has not been kind to high profile Republicans. First we saw the Senate Majority Leader, Trent Lott, resign his post after making racist comments on Strom Thurmond’s birthday. Then we saw the Majority Leader of the House, Tom DeLay, get indicted and resign from Congress. Dennis Hastert, the Speaker of the House, has lost his leadership position largely because he covered up the inappropriate behavior of Rep. Mark Foley toward underage pages. Bill Frist, who replaced Trent Lott as Majority Leader, decided not to run for re-election in order to concentrate on a run for the Presidency. But he is being investigated for insider trading, his poor leadership helped lose the GOP majority in the Senate, and his remote diagnosis of Terri Shiavo outraged people and permanently tarnished his image and credibility. Sen. George Allen planned to run for President but lost his Senate seat after making racist remarks and acting embarrassed about his Jewish heritage. Yet, even with this devastation in the GOP leadership, none of these candidates were ever obvious successors to George W. Bush and the administation did nothing obvious to help their causes.
It’s seems like they really don’t care who the nominee is. The ostensible frontrunners are not much like Bush. Rudy Guiliani is pro-gay rights and pro-choice. John McCain has been a rival of the Bush clan since he ran against Dubya in 2000.
So, I got to thinking, what does it mean that the Bush family doesn’t seem to be nurturing someone to carry forward his policies? Will Jeb Bush or Condi Rice leap forward at the last moment to grasp the banner of Bushism? It’s possible, although I don’t think either of them fit the national mood.
This failure to groom a successor says a lot about the basic selfishness of the Bush clan. They don’t seem to care about their party, which is just a means to an end. They don’t seem to care about policy. Ron Suskind told us about that back in 2003:
One senior White House official told me that he’d be summarily fired if it were known we were talking. “But many of us feel it’s our duty—our obligation as Americans—to get the word out that, certainly in domestic policy, there has been almost no meaningful consideration of any real issues. It’s just kids on Big Wheels who talk politics and know nothing. It’s depressing. Domestic Policy Council meetings are a farce. This leaves shoot-from-the-hip political calculations—mostly from Karl’s shop—to triumph by default. No one balances Karl. Forget it. That was Andy’s cry for help.”
That would be Andy Card, the former chief of staff to the President. The more we look at the Bush administration, the more it looks like they are not interested in governance, but only in power. And they know they can’t stay in office past 2008, so it looks like they don’t care what happens after that point. They will loot as much as they can and then they will be happy to turn over the keys to either party…it doesn’t matter to them.
This criminal mindset appears to run so deep that they do not seem to even be concerned about their legacy. Never mind the lack of a successor, the soaring debt, or the lost war in Iraq, they don’t even appear to have a plan to deal with the Democratic Congress.
Freed up from the need seek re-election, free from having to sell a successor, and free from the necessity to appease their base because of the loss of Congress, they should be seeking out a Dick Morris to help them pass popular legislation that could restore some good will and leave some measure of accomplishment.
Yet, we see little sign that they are in the mood to act in a bipartisan manner. At best they will pass an immigration bill that will make their corporate masters happy (while infuriating their base) and will sign-off on raising the minimum wage. As for the rest of their domestic policy, it looks like they will veto everything, continue to appoint lunatic judges, and keep nominating neo-conservatives like John Bolton to sensitive posts.
I’m still waiting, but I see no signs of true introspection on Iraq, or anything else. Perhaps they are most focused on staying out of jail. Perhaps that is the best reason to put them there.
