Mediocracy in America

A recent issue of TIME magazine had a little piece on Harriet Miers, the White House counsel whose nomination to the Supreme Court was withdrawn under pressure from the right-wing ideologues.

Back at Bush's side, Miers is one of the dwindling number of longtime Texas confidants still at the White House at this time of upheaval. The loyalty is reciprocal--Bush was still hot months later about how she was treated, viewing her as a victim of snobby élitists.

Generally, speaking the left and the right alike thought Miers was extremely underqualified to serve on the nation's highest court.

Do I often agree with Justice Antonin Scalia's opinions? Rarely. Is his judicial temperment obnoxious? Often. Is he one of the most intelligent, well qualified legal minds in the country? Absolutely.

And this epitomizes one of the greatest faults of the Bush administration: its complete lack of expectations (other than loyalty), the way it continually rewards mediocrity.

Paul Bremer completely screws up the initial stages of the US occupation of Iraq (including the mysterious case of the vanishing $8 billion). The result? He's awarded a presidential medal of freedom. Vice-President Dick Cheney and Secretary of War Donald Rumsfeld were two of the main architects of the Iraq disaster and neither has been fired or forced to resign. Then-National Security Advisor Condoleeza Rice was too and she was promoted.

In defending the 1969 nomination of Harold Carswell to the Supreme Court, Nebraska Sen. Roman Hruska famously quipped, "Even if he is mediocre, there are a lot of mediocre judges and people and lawyers. They are entitled to a little representation, aren't they?"

President Bush obviously concluded yes.

In his two election campaigns, Mr. Bush has successfully (if bizarrely considering his patrician, old money background) passed himself off as a regular guy, an ordinary bloke. So maybe he thought it would be a good quality to inject into the Supreme Court.

Joe Sixpack gets into a fight at the bar everytime some drunk says his mama wears combat boots. The difference is Joe Sixpack doesn't command a huge military. Mediocrity is acceptable for a paperboy or the guy delivering your pizza, not for the guy with his finger on the nuclear button. And not for one of the nine people in the country who decide what the Constitution means.

Yes, I want only the best, most elite legal minds to serve on the nation's most important court. Let the mediocre ones bring them coffee. If that makes me a snobby elitist, so be it.

Update: Rolling Stone magazine cites a leading historian who calls Bush 'the worst president in history.'

Though he's far and away the worst in my lifetime, I'm not yet prepared to call him the worst of all time. It's certainly plausible. Most of the men regarded as terrible presidents (Hoover, Buchanan, Nixon) only brought severe damage to this country; the devastation wrought by Bush has extended far beyond America's borders. That said, I do not subscribe to the school of instant historical judgement, which I consider an oxymoron. Historical judgements are usually more fair when they are removed from the passion of the moment. Maybe history will regard Bush as only merely bad. Only time will tell.

But here's the key point:

No other president -- Lincoln in the Civil War, FDR in World War II, John F. Kennedy at critical moments of the Cold War -- faced with such a monumental set of military and political circumstances failed to embrace the opposing political party to help wage a truly national struggle. But Bush shut out and even demonized the Democrats. Top military advisers and even members of the president's own Cabinet who expressed any reservations or criticisms of his policies -- including retired Marine Corps Gen. Anthony Zinni and former Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill -- suffered either dismissal, smear attacks from the president's supporters or investigations into their alleged breaches of national security.

Candidate Bush promised to be a uniter, not a divider. Yet, President Bush has been a divider since day one, offering his middle finger to the half of the country that didn't vote for him. Even Reagan, who I was never fond of ideologically, was a master of co-opting the opposition in order to make his agenda seem mainstream. With the exception of a few weeks after the attacks, even 9/11 didn't fundamentally change Bush's approach even as that event made uniting an even more crucial quality for the head of state. Bush expects the opposition to blindly support his madness (or at least to be bullied into submission) but refuses to consult with that opposition, refuses to bring them into the decision making process.decision making process.