Letter: Federal appointments not Bush’s strong suit

Saturday, Dec. 9, 2006 | 7:08 a.m.

Among the other sins of his administration, President Bush has been especially careless in selecting people to head government agencies.

We can start with Michael Brown, the former head of the Federal Emergency Management Agency, who days after Hurricane Katrina had no clue as to how to bring relief to our fellow citizens suffering on the Gulf Coast.

Then there was Donald Rumsfeld, who advocated the invasion of Iraq but then ignored his generals' advice and tried to maintain peace there on the cheap, with too few troops, leading to the disastrous situation we face there today.

Then there was John Bolton, who was appointed by Bush to be our U.N. ambassador without the Senate's consent, and who had always been very critical of this august organization. Even as he served, Mr. Bolton was contemptuous of this institution, did not believe in its doctrines and was simply undiplomatic in dealing with other nations.

Now that these men have left, and we lurch through the final two years of President Bush's term, let's hope that reasonable heads will prevail in the White House and the Congress, and maybe in 2008 we will finally get a president who puts country before party.

Richard J. Mundy, Las Vegas