Finished another book yesterday. And by “finished” I mean writing, not reading.

This one was a ghost-writing gig. Between this project and the Palin book I’ve written about 100,000 words since getting back from Alaska in mid-March. Not that I’m complaining, mind you. I’m thrilled to have had the opportunities. But meeting the deadlines has meant pretty much lashing myself to my office chair for 14 hours per day for the last 12 weeks. Every once in a while I would get up and walk 10 feet from the chair just to prove to the universe and myself that we are indeed two separate entities.

Meanwhile the world kept spinning. Though the wheels seem to have come off and we’re pretty much just rolling down the freeway on rims now as the sparks fly upward.

*****

President Obama is trying to figure out “whose ass to kick.”  The Holder Justice Department just lost another honest lawyer because he was, you know, honest. Secretary of State Clinton delivered heartfelt birthday greetings to Queen Elizabeth a week before her birthday. And it appears a huge volume of U.S. foreign policy secrets have been leaked and are about to posted on the web.

Do you want to know what Obama and friends have me missing the most about the Bush Administration? Competence.

Yes, the Bush years offered plenty to disappoint and frustrate. Government and spending grew far too much. Immigration and border security policy were foolish. And some of the ticking economic time bombs that were activated in the Clinton years were allowed to keep on ticking.

However, it is should be noted that the Bush Administration and Republicans in Congress made a valiant effort in 2003 to reform the Community Reinvestment Act. Congressional Democrats, led by Barney Frank, were successful in defeating the reform measures and the housing bubble kept right on inflating until it burst in 2008.

All that aside, think back to the team Bush assembled and the resume’s they brought to Washington, both in business and government. Here is line up A:

• Cheney–White House Chief of Staff (Ford); Congressman; Secretary of Defense (Bush 41); Chairman/CEO Halliburton
• Rumsfeld–Congressman; Director, U.S. Office of Economic Opportunity (Nixon); White House Chief of Staff (Ford); Secretary of Defense (Ford); Ambassador to NATO (Nixon); CEO/President/Chairman, Searle Corporation; Chairman/CEO General Instrument Corp.; Chairman, Gilead Sciences Corp.
• Powell–4-Star General, U.S. Army; National Security Advisor (Reagan); Chairman, Joint Chiefs of Staff, (Bush 41)
• Ashcroft–Governor, Missouri (two terms); U.S. Senator

(As it turned out, Bush’s two biggest cabinet blunders involved leaving Clinton appointees in place–Tenet at CIA and Mineta at Transportation.)

Now compare the backgrounds and real-world experience of those key Bush cabinet appointees to their counterparts in the Obama government. That would be Joe Biden, Robert Gates, Hillary Clinton, and Eric Holder. The only one in this group who knows what he or she is doing is Gates, the hold-over from the Bush administration.

Thus, the most inexperienced, least qualified President to occupy the White House since Warren G. Harding has surrounded himself with an inexperienced, under-qualified team. This, just as our nation is facing a confluence of crises not seen since the 1930s–when the Great Depression combined with the Dust Bowl and the global rise if militant fascism.

*****

Some thoughts about the Flotilla a little later.