Inside the Beltway. . . and Out

Newsweek has a very compelling story on the inner workings of the White House handlers and Bush's thought process (or lack thereof).

The piece points out that Bush has surrounded himself with people who agree with him, and he equates disagreement with disloyalty. The piece has an amusing recounting of the debate among senior White House staffers over who would deliver the bad news that Bush should cut his long vacation by a couple of days to address the disaster. Naturally, they made the lowest ranking guy do it.

With Bush's approval ratings at an all time low, many Americans are counting the days until he is out of office.

I saw a sign somethere -- I think it was Internet coverage of a MoveOn.org event, that, referring to the federal government's mishandling of the Katrina relief effort, said:

"This is what you get when government is in the hands of people who hate government."

I couldn't have said it better myself.