The mind of our president

I find it hard to fathom George Bush's mind. I can be stubborn. I can be pig headed. I can be completely off based. I can be clueless. I can be wrong.


But this man is bizarre.


Look at two of his friends/allies.



Alberto Gonzalez - US Attorney General

In the past week he has shown a mix of incompetence, corruption, and loyalty to a friend that he holds over duty to and love of one's country.

This has pleased Bush.

His friend, used the US DoJ has a tool of the White House. Now, the DoJ has always had a relationship with the Presidency, its boss is named by it. But their has always been a line not crossed. Look back to Nixon, when he asked his Attorney General to commit some unsavory act, the AG balked and was fired. He put a new man in, he refused. He was also fired. He then gave the job to Bork (famed as a would be Supreme Court justice, and now staunch foe of the judicial branch) and Bork happily complied. And Bork is long remembered for this. Justice is supposed to stand alone. But Gonzalez is incapable of that. Gonzalez had made a life time career out of being Bush's Yes Man, from tagging along in Texas, to the Texas Supreme Court, to the White House, and now from the DoJ.



Paul Wolfowitz - World Bank

This man was one of the architects of the Iraq War, a long time Neocon, and now has been given control of a critical organization that dictates terms to numerous nations, including many impoverished.

Beyond any actions he has taken in his new job, you have a guy who has been handing out jobs, getting his girlfriend a State Department job, with high wages (Higher pay than Sec. Rice.), prewritten evaluations, and high security clearance, which she should not have been given.

And he says he did nothing wrong. He is in the right. At this point nations like China and India are threatening to stop relationships with the Bank. Europe wants him out. Many of his employees say his refuses to discuss plans, only force them through.

NPR.org:

Wolfowitz arrived at the bank determined, Holland says, to "shake up" the culture. He felt that the bank had not been taking a sufficiently tough line in dealing with allegations of corruption in the governments with which it was involved. In his first few months on the job, Wolfowitz moved almost unilaterally to suspend some high-profile bank projects.

Some of the governments complained to Joe Stiglitz, the chief bank economist under Wolfowitz's predecessor, saying that Wolfowitz was treating them unfairly.

"Accusations were brought about corruption in one particular country, and when that country said, 'We want to see the evidence, we want it prosecuted if there's a problem,' that evidence was not forthcoming," Stiglitz says. He characterizes the country in question as having "strong democratic procedures" and being determined to uphold the rule of law. "It wanted to make sure it was doing the right thing," Stiglitz says, "but it was not able to defend itself against the charges."

Stiglitz would not identify the country, but other former World Bank officials say the circumstances fit what happened in India. Wolfowitz and his senior management team suspended a huge health program there in response to allegations of corruption in the contracting process. The problems had been uncovered in an earlier inquiry, and investigators found that the bank staff and the Indian government were taking corrective actions.

The suspension came as a complete surprise to Michael Carter, the World Bank country director in India. Now retired from the bank, he says there were "no consultations" over the India project between the senior bank management and the local bank staff. Carter resigned from the bank, he says, because he believed the management's approach to alleged corruption in India was "seriously flawed."

Uzbekistan and his underlings:

Wolfowitz also faced criticism for his decision in 2005 to reject a proposed bank assistance strategy for Uzbekistan. That action came shortly after the government of Uzbekistan announced it would no longer grant U.S. military aircraft access to an airfield in Uzbekistan, thus hampering the U.S. war effort in Afghanistan. At a press conference in Washington on Thursday, Wolfowitz insisted that his decision to suspend World Bank activity in Uzbekistan had nothing to do with U.S. foreign policy concerns.

"The question for the World Bank is — given the substantial human rights violations that were taking place prior to that decision — we had real concerns about whether we could get transparency about where our money was going," Wolfowitz said.

Once again, however, the decision to suspend bank activities in Uzbekistan was made with minimal input from career bank professionals.

"I accept the fact that Paul Wolfowitz is president of the bank and has the right to do that," says Dennis de Tray, who was responsible for World Bank activities in Uzbekistan at the time. "But that he didn't discuss it with those of us who were knowledgeable, who had spent many months working on that strategy, who were fully aware of the sensitivities of it, struck me as creating an unnecessary chasm between that decision and the staff."

De Tray, who has since left the World Bank, says that morale among his former bank colleagues is a "serious" problem. "People don't fully understand where Paul wants to take the Bank, " he says, "and they find it demoralizing that he seems uninterested in the career professionals."

And, Bush is pleased.

Wolfowitz pushes the neocon agenda and backs the president up. Now, he has spoken on Global Warming and increased US aid to Africa, but where it matters he is with his president.


So Bush is pleased.


The mind of George Bush.