Surrounding Yourself With "The Best People"

When Bush was elected, many deflected his inexperience by claiming he was excellent at delegating, and would surround himself with competent people. I was reminded of this the other day when I heard Mike Huckabee, governor of Arkansas, use the same line to defend Bush's appointment of Karen Hughes as the envoy in charge of promoting the nation's image in the Islamic world. He responded to questions about her qualification by asserting that she's bright and capable, and would surround herself with good people. And, of course, there's the bang up job Bush has done appointing "good people" to the Civil Rights Division of the Justice Department.

I guess, ultimately, the goal is to appoint lots of people who have no real qualification, but are also skilled delegators... and to hope that the people at the bottom of the organizational chart actually turn out to have sufficient competence to perform the tasks delegated down from the top. Still, I would have appreciated it had Bush made a slight exception, and appointed a qualified person to head FEMA. (But hey - he seems like a smart guy, and I'm sure that he has surrounded himself with....)