The Image Thing

Maybe I have missed a beat somewhere along the way, Bush, but I have still not been able to find any official action or statement confirming what I have read, now, in several places concerning the positition of your Rove in the Gulf Coast recovery effort: that you have put him "in charge"? Bill Maher repeated it in his Friday night show, a reader reminds me. "Does Bush know only three people?" he asked, incredulously, regarding the supposed appointment.

Is this true, Bush, or has someone got the wrong end of the stick? If it's true, why has there not been some clear confirmation to that effect coming from your White House? Or did I simply miss it? I checked online, with no luck there, either. So, no fanfare. Maybe this is something you're not too proud of, or maybe you worry about the public reaction if you put it out as some kind of official announcement?

If you're wondering why I'm fussing about this lack of clarity, it's because this appointment--if it's true--is so patently underhanded. A little like the appointment of your Bolton to the UN job, although in that case you couldn't have hoped that nobody was watching. The whole world was appalled. It's the sneakiness of it, Bush. Is that because you were actually aware of the message it would send: that, for you, this whole disaster is about politics and image--your personal image, and your poll numbers, Bush, and not about the systemic erosion of government that has been your policy since taking office?

So bring in the spinmeister to take charge of the problem. And while he does whatever needs to be done to rebuild your crumbling base, you can get on, behind the scenes, with the real business at hands: protecting your tax cuts for the wealthy, and further degrading the ability of government to serve the people who elect it. This does not bode well, Bush. I may sound like the proverbial broken record, but it will all come back to haunt this country, and before too long. You are disempowering not only the government, but this once great nation that you claim so piously to love.