Back To Reality

Well, now that the election is safely over, we can go back to observing how much the Bush Administration really does bite.

In addition to it's idiotic and incomprehensible policy on illegal immigration ("We like it!"), there is also the staggering arrogance.

Several examples just from the last few days:

Robert Novak writes that the Bushies refused to receive Catholic Italian statesman Rocco Buttiglione, one of the few conservative, pro-America figures left in modern Europe:

While this conduct contradicts Bush's campaign posture, there is no mystery about what is going on. The re-elected president is offering a hand in friendship to "Old Europe," at the cost of alienating the traditional Catholic constituency so avidly courted the past four years. Never having to worry about running again, Bush can give the back of his hand to Buttiglione, just as the leftist-dominated, anti-American EU refused to seat him as a commissioner.

The administration couldn't even spare a staffer to meet with perhaps our nation's best friend in Italy.

Perhaps that's because all the staffers were too busy spending the weekend dumping on Rudy Giuliani, whom they're blaming for the abortive Bernard Kerik nomination for Homeland Security chief. (It's called "vetting," Mr. President. Look into it.)

According to the Times:

Although people close to the president say he likes and respects Mr. Giuliani, they say the president has long been leery of him as a man who could not be counted on for the loyalty demanded by Mr. Bush. And while the breakdown of Mr. Kerik's nomination is not lethal to Mr. Giuliani's relationship with the White House, the friends and officials say, it will hardly burnish his credentials with the president.

As Steve Martin used to say, "Well excuuuuuuuuuuse meeeeeeee!"

Good grief, all this "loyalty" stuff is starting to sound downright Nixonian. Imperial Presidency indeed. Just how many days did Giuliani (whom I don't particularly care for) spend stumping for Bush during the past election? Towards the end, Bush and Giuliani were were spending more time together than Chang and Eng.

But that's not "loyal" enough. Is "loyalty" how the idiot savant Norman Mineta has been able to retain his cabinet post so long? If so, perhaps we ought to start looking a little less at "loyalty" and a little more at "competence."

What do you have to do to be considered loyal to these people? Donate a kidney? Carry out a hit on Paul O'Neill?