Chuck Grimes wrote:
>
> I don't see ineptness. I see up to the present, more or less complete
> success in achieving what they want and blocking what they don't want.
> The only ineptness I know of is the failure to pass the bill screwing
> credit-card debtors. Carrol
>
> --------
>
> Well, that's Congress. I was talking about the cabinet.
I was talking about the whole administration, and one of the chief measures of any presidency is how it succeeds or fails in getting what it wants from Congress. Bush's personal qualities are more or less irrelevant in judging the intelligence of the presidency, and with Rice, Powell, Cheney, it looks like this is a pretty high-powered presidency intellectually and politically.
> The question
> is what does the Bush administration want, and they want
> nothing--except maybe some money for themselves, keep from being
> indicted, and get to the next election.
This is mind-reading. I don't think attacks on the personality, motives, etc. of the enemy is a very fruitful course for leftists to follow. They certainly have a policy -- their public actions. Denying that those constitute a policy is, I think, merely scoring rhetorical points. But seeing it as a policy, the current policy of the u.s. capitaliist class, and seeing it as being carried out competently and powerfully, defines more accurately our task in building a left in the u.s. We want to build a left that can oppose that policy.
Carrol