[The Office of Personnel Management's Plum Book, published at the start of each presidential Administration, shows that there are more than 3,000 positions a President can fill without consideration for civil service rules. And Bush has gone further than most Presidents to put political stalwarts in some of the most important government jobs you've never heard of, and to give them genuine power over the bureaucracy.] These folks are really good at using the instruments of government to promote the President's political agenda, ... And I think that takes you well into the gray zone where few Presidents have dared to go in the past. It's the coordination and centralization that's important here. |
A lot of governments are woefully ill-prepared. If you haven't been contacted by your local government about disaster plans, that's a good sign your government isn't ready. |
Cheney becomes a bit of an albatross except with the base, where he's a real rock star, ... It'll be less possible for him to make campaign trips because this issue will dog him. |
From what I know of the vulnerabilities of these cash programs and the very poor tracking systems in FEMA, I'd be surprised if there weren't lots of false claims, erroneous payouts and wasted resources, |
From what I know of the vulnerabilities of these cash programs and the very poor tracking systems in FEMA, I'd be surprised if there weren't lots of false claims, erroneous payouts and wasted resources. |
Habitat (for Humanity) will build you a house, and it will build 500 other houses. It won't build 10,000 houses. |
He's a survivor, that's for sure, ... He was intimately involved with the decision that dumped Nelson Rockefeller from the ticket under [President] Ford, and he ought to be thinking a little about that these days. I don't think he's anywhere near that kind of crisis, but Cheney's greatest vulnerability is hubris. |
He's a survivor, that's for sure. He was intimately involved with the decision that dumped Nelson Rockefeller from the ticket under [President] Ford, and he ought to be thinking a little about that these days. I don't think he's anywhere near that kind of crisis, but Cheney's greatest vulnerability is hubris. |
He's become such a lightning rod. Much of the public blames him for everything that's gone wrong in the Bush administration. |
He's surrounded by people who agree with him. |
I don't know of a single nationally known charity whose confidence has managed to hold up in the wake of Katrina. It's serious. |
I think Bush takes a big hit. He's vulnerable on it, even if it's not totally fair. |
I think that is starting to show here now in jobs where the administration would like to have some quality and would like to have some expertise. |
I think the 20,000 employees of immigration and customs enforcement have got to be scratching their heads, and saying, am I going to take orders from this particular person who has never held a gun in her hand? |
If you don't believe what the president believes or more generally what the White House believes, you're not going to get a second look and that narrows the pool to a very small number of people, |