A lock on anonymity marks Bush cabinet (Robert Reich)

[struggle4progress]

.. Quick: Name a single cabinet officer other than Condoleezza Rice or Donald Rumsfeld. Of all the cabinets I have known, the Bush administration's is by far the quietest. What do they do all day? ..

Why is this crowd so invisible? Because they've been cowed by a White House that has imposed extraordinary discipline. All policy pronouncements must flow through Karl Rove and Dick Cheney. Everyone else is out of the loop because there is no other loop.

The result is the kind of loopiness we've seen again and again, such as the Medicare drug benefits doughnut hole that hits seniors after they receive the first $2,250 in drug benefits, or Bush's silly bandage of a one-year extension of relief from the Alternative Minimum Tax. Both the Health and Human Service departments have extraordinary talent. But as long as the cabinet departments are kept out of the loop, their expertise is useless.

Bush could have pushed his cabinet secretaries to distinguish themselves. He could have unleashed the knowledge and creativity of his cabinet departments, even in the service of his conservative agenda. That Bush, Rove and Cheney chose instead to impose lockstep discipline and gag orders has only diminished the role of the cabinet but also, in the end, diminished the role of the president.

http://www.milforddailynews.com/opinion/view.bg?articleid=92921