Welcome, if you're new here, you may want to subscribe to our RSS feed or subscribe to our email newsletter. Thanks for visiting!

This is from David Frum, himself a former President Bush staffer (speechwriter) who has been critical of Bush on occasion since he left office (most notably during his Harriet Miers and immigration debacles).

In case anyone’s wondering, I have very little sympathy for Bush or others who feel wronged by all this. Bush is the person who hired McClellan, whose conspiracy theories about the Plame affair unfortunately lead me to not want to read the book.

I don’t understand why many conservatives have gone crazy in response. The Bush presidency has been an enormous wasted opportunity. Is anyone really surprised when it falls apart once Bush’s chosen loyalists no longer have any incentive to drink the kool-aid?

Here’s Frum:

George W. Bush brought most of his White House team with him from Texas. Except for Karl Rove, these Texans were a strikingly inadequate bunch. Harriet Miers, Alberto Gonzalez, Karen Hughes, Al Hawkins, Andy Card (the last not a Texan, but a lifelong Bush family retainer) — they were more like characters from The Office than the sort of people one would expect to find at the supreme height of government in the world’s most powerful nation. McClellan, too, started in Bush’s governor’s office, and if he never belonged to the innermost circle of power, he nonetheless gained closer proximity than would be available to almost anyone who did not first serve in Texas.

That early team was recruited with one paramount consideration in mind: loyalty. Theoretically, it should be possible to combine loyalty with talent. But that did not happen often with the Bush team.

Bush demanded a very personal kind of loyalty, a loyalty not to a cause or an idea, but to him and his own career. Perhaps unconsciously, he tested that loyalty with constant petty teasing, sometimes verging on the demeaning.

Peggy Noonan also has a must-read.

Also, I’m 99% sure that McClellan ran over Bob Dole’s dog.

• Simon Harak's September 2003 Speech at Marquette -- And My Official Introduction to Jesuits - June 12th, 2008
• "How Al Gore is Getting Fat off of a Starving World" - June 1st, 2008
• So in other words, you have no leads or suspects at this time? - May 30th, 2008
• RITA GAHAGAN - May 24th, 2008
• Another Armed Robbery ... Why does it take DPS six hours to send out these emails? - May 21st, 2008