Nobody Returns Bush's Loyalty

I've wanted to comment about this for a while, but I've never gotten around to it until now. What triggered this were the resignations of Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, press secretary Tony Snow and adviser Karl Rove last year from President Bush's staff. This got me to thinking how many people have left Bush's staff in the past few years, as it seems like much more than usual.

In the seven plus years since Bush has been in office, he has had fifty-three people as part of his Cabinet. Of the twenty-five departments, only three have had one person leading it throughout Bush's term in office. Compared to the last two two-term presidents, Bill Clinton and Ronald Reagan, the total number of people who have been part of the Cabinet is greater by almost twenty. That's quite a lot. That doesn't even include those who are part of his staff but are not Cabinet members, such as the aforementioned Snow and Rove, and even Harriet Miers whom Bush infamously chose as a Supreme Court justice and defended her despite her obvious shortcomings.

President Bush has been staunchly loyal to his employees, sometimes almost to a fault. Ranging from John Ashcroft to Donald Rumsfeld to Gonzales, all have made mistakes that the media and the public have questioned their integrity and called for their resignation. While this loyalty may be a Bush virtue, sometimes it is blindly doglike, with Bush overlooking almost every criticism just so he can look like he did not make a bad choice. In the end, these three, as well as others, ended up turning in their resignations under heavy pressure, and Bush continues to praise them for their overall body of work while again overlooking their pitfalls. What a way to treat such a loyal man.

Of course, many have not left due to the consequences of their mistakes. Snow, for example, was ill and wanted to spend more time with his family. Rove thought Bush did not need him anymore and wanted to move on to other things (such as the 2008 election, where he could help save the Republican party). Others may have seen what this administration was doing to the country and the world and just wanted to leave before their names were attached to this infamy. Quite smart of them.

But this turnover of staff has to raise an alarm about how Bush is running things in Washington. It could be any of the reasons above, or something else not yet mentioned such as mismanagement, situation discontent, or any other personal reason. Whatever the explanation for this, something fishy is going on at the White House, and the 2008 election has come not a moment too soon.