[huldah1776]

His traitor friend Scott McClellan worked for him how long?

[Wallace T.]

Scott McClellan was a bad appointment. It may be explained by his political connections in Texas, as he is the son of Carol Keeton Rylander, a former liberal Democrat mayor of Austin who switched over to become a RINO. Other bad choices included two of Bush's Treasury Secretaries, Paul O'Neil and Hank Paulson, and his choice for the Fed chairmanship, Ben Bernanke. Additionally, he put up with unsuccessful commanders in Iraq for way too long. It took the 2006 election disaster to fire Rumsfeld as Secretary of Defense and place a competent general (Petreaus) in charge of Iraqi operations, after which the situation turned to our favor.

I don't believe bad judgment was in play, although the President seems to have an overly optimistic view of human nature. He made sound choices in the judiciary and foreign policy overall.

Given the President's Texas background (cronyism and political favortism have been standard operating procedures for a very long time) and the history of the Bush family going back to his grandfather, his economic background is more of a mercantilist one, with government coordinating with big business, rather than the more laissez faire approach of Barry Goldwater, Robert Taft, Sr., or Calvin Coolidge. It would have been out of character for President Bush to appoint free market advocates to the key economic positions. Unfortunately, the poor advice he received in these matters led to statist, anti-free market policies such as the bailouts and expansion of Medicare.