George Bush's Ugly Ploy

Like the semi-cute girl in high school who would hang out with the plainest friends to make herself look dazzling, George Bush may be cleverer than we know,

The parade of unappealing people who have always surrounded him defies the law of averages: John Ashcroft, Rumsfeld with his Three Stooges--Feith, Wolfowitz and Perle--Brownie of FEMA fame, Scooter Libby, Scott McClellan, John Bolton, Harriet Meirs and now, Alberto Gonzales, to say nothing of those golden oldies, Dick Cheney and Karl Rove.

As soon as one goes overboard, along comes a less attractive replacement, i.e., Gonzales for Ashcroft. It’s terrifying to think who might be next.

But lest liberals get too smug, they may want to recall what happened when Kennedy surrounded himself with what David Halberstam caustically called “The Best and the Brightest.” Vietnam was the product of overconfident brilliance, just as arrogant stupidity gave us Iraq.

“You can’t beat brains,” JFK liked to say. How about old-fashioned competence?