It's these little sophomoric assumptions that drive me insane. You see "resignations" occurring as the administration's second term is winding down and your assumptions leap to "cracking up", "hemorrhaging", etc. And to top it all off, to whom do you leap to as the immediate comparison for all things Bush? Nixon of course. Listen meat head, resignations occur all throughout administrations, but especially as the second term is coming to a close. These people (outside of Gonzalez) are leaving in order to pursue professional possibilities while their name is still "hot." And it's much more so when your last boss is STILL president. This is an age old tradition for cabinet members and senior staff. In the AG's case he just didn't handle his PR well, and was consumed by the DNC smear machine. In reality, the federal prosecutors he fired wasn't a scandal at all - he fired 6, while Clinton/Reno fired all 96! As was their right to do so. They work at the discretion of the president.
The truth is, Bush has had more loyal and long term senior staff / cabinet members than most modern presidents. The longest serving sec def. The longest serving senior advisor in Rhove, Condi has been with him from the start, and he has a grand total of three press secretaries - how many did Clinton go through? Lets take a look, shall we - and I'll only use numbers through 1997 - 5 years worth of sith lord Clinton's service, just to put the "umph" in your six year surprise at Bush & co. In those 5 years Billy "the dry cleaner can get that right out" Clinton had: 2 secretaries of state; 2 secs of treasury; 3 secs of defense; 2 secs of Agriculture; 3 secs of commerce (although the first died); 2 secs of Labor; 2 HUD secs; 2 secs of Transportation; and 2 secs of Energy. And add to that the countless senior staffers/advisers such as Stephonopolous, Dee Myers, Dick Morris, etc. And some of those left in the first term and under scandal! The fact that many in the Bush White house held on till half way through the second term goes is to his credit. And again, outside of Gonzales not one of these resignations were due to scandal - unlike Nixon or Clinton, making your tricky dick analogy tantamount to cow dung. If any recent president has the most to share with Nixon it is none other than William Jefferson Clinton. These resignations are par for the second term course - nothing more. Hardly a "hemorrhage."
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Whoa, back the trolley up a second... Rove, Rummy, Clarke, O'Neal, even Powell (who was asked to resign my Andrew Card, who was then the Chief of Staff... and later resigned himself in some controversy) ALL resigned or were fired because they failed in their roles within the Cabinet to some degree or other.
Also, how many of these resignations/firings were based on that person's position concerning the war in Iraq, or the War on Terror? Clarke, O'Neal, Rove, Card... and Powell didn't go because he was watching his family starve either. He didn't feel he could remain "onboard" with the Administration... that's what I heard him say about his departure from the Cabinet.
Now, I'm not putting Clinton up as a yardstick, by any means... but you didn't see staffers jumping ship like wet rats from the Admins of FDR, or Johnson, or Reagan, or Bush Sr., did you? All those could be considered "war-time" Presidents, AS IS BUSH NOW. THAT was the point I was making.
T
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