On Kerik: Trust but Verify
Ya know, there are some news bandwagons I let go by without feeling the slightest need to jump aboard. God as my witness, I thought the Kerik insanity was one such moment, but Legal Fiction hits on precisely the point that held the slightest doubt in my mind firmly in place:
What's scary, though, is not so much that Bush nominated a shady guy with mob ties to DHS. What's scary is that this is the process that the White House has in place to make decisions about war and peace, life and death, and our nation's (and world's) fiscal policy.If this is the sort of rigorous, adversarial fact-finding process used to select arguably the most important cabinet position in the country right now, then why should we expect it to be any different on other even more important decisions such as, oh, partial privatization of Social Security and/or a military strike against Iran. The Kerik nomination, I fear, is merely the tremor before the real earthquake.
For my conservative readers, this is exactly why I have no confidence in Bush - especially when he's making a "bold" decision. It's not really an issue of conservative vs. progressive policies. My real gripe with Bush is that he rejects the principles of empiricism - and the Enlightenment more generally - in reaching decisions on really really important issues.
Yeah, I gotta second that. I mean hell, I'm a Texan by birth. None of this sissy "moved here as soon as I could" nonsense. I'll be buried in Texas if I have to come back from the dead to do so. So I get that whole "swagger" thing, grit my teeth when Bush is referred to as a go-it-alone cowboy, and whatever anti-Texas stuff comes along. But Bush doesn't just stop there. And I've yet to be fully convinced I'm too prone to paranoia. It's one thing to trust your gut. It's another thing to have not have someone who's paid to check the merits of that gut instinct do just that. After all, didn't someone once say something along the lines of "Trust, but verify?" I think he had some swagger, too.