Leave no bozo behind!: President Bush is a kinder, gentler Republican, it turns out. He's kind and gentle to those who work for him. He may have cast himself as the first CEO-style president, but he doesn't seem to have the stomach to fire anyone.
Paul O'Neill's failure as treasury secretary to establish stature or rapport with the financial world would probably have earned him the boot in any previous administration you might pick. But O'Neill shows no sign of going anywhere.
Army secretary Thomas White is a former Enron official who either (A) knew what was happening at that company and therefore shares responsibility in its ignominy or (B) was completely in the dark about Enron's escapades. A he's a crook, B he's a boob (of the "Sgt. Schultz defense" species); either way he has no business in a critical military post at a time when we are nominally at war. But President Bush stands by his Enron man.
Then there's SEC chief Harvey Pitt, who -- in an act of jaw-dropping flat-footedness -- decided to push for his own promotion to cabinet-level status at the very moment when much of the rest of the country is trying to figure out why he has not yet resigned. Bush still thinks Pitt, who took office by promising to make the SEC a "kinder, gentler" regulator of his friends in the accounting industry, is the right man for the job.
What do you have to do to get fired from this administration, anyway? Get arrested for drunk driving?
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