Better The Idiot You Know Than The Idiot You Don't Know

This is a strange thing. Almost everyone in the country with an education beyond the third grade is coming to the conclusion that the Bush team is...how to say this politely...Bush league. So naturally the question arises as to if the president plans to bring on some people that are...what's the phrase...minimally competent. Not a big surprise considering this administration is 0 for everything. Even the president, from deep within his bubble seems to get it. "Well, I'm not going to announce it right now," he said, probably because there was static on his com line to Cheney's office.

But here's the strange part. Karl Rove told associates he was confident he could resist calls to bring in new advisers. "We've got a perfect record going here now," Rove said. "I'm not going to bring someone on board now who might screw that up."

Very strange. There seems to be some sort of disconnect between the president and his staff over this. Let's ask two experienced and talented reporters for the New York Times to put it into perspective for us:

It is not clear what role a new appointee would take on, or whether Mr. Bush, known for his loyalty, would be able to make a change without diminishing the standing of Mr. Card and Mr. Rove. Nor is it certain that Mr. Bush will even make a change.

Ah. So, something could happen, or maybe nothing will happen. Ok, let us ask you this: Did federal financial aid finance any of journalism training? If so we'd like our money back.

One Republican said Mr. Bush should view it as replacing a top-notch pitcher struggling in the later innings of a baseball game, rather than as a vote of no-confidence in a friend.

Now, we certainly don't want to imply that we are experts on the game of baseball, or anything like that, but we're pretty sure that when one pitcher comes in, the other must go out, and the reason the pitcher goes out is because he's thrown too many long balls and not enough strikes.

To their credit though, the two staff members most often singled out (subtle baseball metaphor) are Andrew Card and Karl Rove. "I take responsibility for everything that has not happened well," Mr. Card said. "Each night when I go home I'm go out into my backyard, take the top off my garbage can, a metal garbage can mind you, and bash it into my forehead 20 times."

"We're all paid every two weeks," Mr. Rove said. "Whether we're on our game or not — I'm an idiot one day and a genius the next — that's the way it is." Um...er...well OK. When you get to the genius part Mr. Rove, would you give us a call? We're in the book.

Mr. Rove said he attributed Mr. Bush's problems more to external events, in particular Hurricane Katrina and Iraq, than to anything the White House did wrong. "Look, we came here to improve our corporate friends' bottom lines, our rich friends' portfolios and our oil buddies' supply lines," Mr. Rove told colleagues. "Unless you can show me a way they can make money off hurricanes, I don't see your point."

Senator John Thune, Republican of South Dakota said, "When you've had horses there that you've been riding for a long time, you kind of need to change them once in a while." Oh yeah. This is way better than the baseball metaphor, but would you like to get a little more specific Senator Thune? Would you like to describe the specific part of the horse's anatomy that you had in mind?