John Walsh

Maybe we can excuse our President, George W Bush, of most of his transgressions, but not of his latest faux pas which is giving an age old political custom a bad name. As more of his appointment of cronies to high places in his government comes under fire, he has succeeded where many of his predecessors have failed in giving cronyism a bad name. Early on there was evidence that his predilection to give old cronies a big job in government was suspect. He consulted old friend, Dick ...Maybe we can excuse our President, George W Bush, of most of his transgressions, but not of his latest faux pas which is giving an age old political custom a bad name. As more of his appointment of cronies to high places in his government comes under fire, he has succeeded where many of his predecessors have failed in giving cronyism a bad name. Early on there was evidence that his predilection to give old cronies a big job in government was suspect. He consulted old friend, Dick Cheney, in the first campaign for the presidency in 2000 about the choice of a vice presidential running mate. Apparently, after reviewing a long list of possible candidates, he chose his advisor Cheney to run with him. I suppose from the president's point of view, the choice of Cheney has been nearly perfect. He has been a loyal surrogate for the president seemingly happy to take the rap for any and all questions of policy or the execution of same. Cheney remains the last man in the administration willing to claim that Saddam and bin Laden sat down for breakfast one morning and planned out the bombing of the World Trade Center rather than admit the administration claim of an alliance is phony

From the reliance by the President on Cheney's advice, the country has had to endure the reign of the "Little Caesar," Donald Rumsfeld as Secretary of Defense. Rummy had served with Cheney in the administration of the president's father, so his appointment was an act of cronyism once removed. While advocating a sharp reduction in numbers in our armed forces and then carrying it out, Rumsfeld has also fostered and expansion of lethal responsibility of these reduced forces to the point that they can only carry out their mission with great difficulty and heavy reliance upon the citizen soldiers in the reserve and national guard. Nearly half of all the soldiers in Iraq are reserves, and they have accounted for more than half of the over 2,000 Americans who have perished there.