Have you read all of Karl Rove’s memoir Me, Poop, Trash, & Gargoyles and presented your findings to your fellow unemployment line decorations yet, at the Water Cooler? You have?? Lucky. Well then surely you remember the part where Rove reveals how George W. Bush kept trying to get Fred Smith, the FedEx shipping company CEO, to become Secretary of Defense constantly, because he was serious about wars and terror.
It was a long road to Robert Gates’ Texas chateau in 2006, we learn:
It had to be a seamless move from the old secretary of defense to the new, and we couldn’t make that happen. That summer, I looked into whether FedEx CEO Fred Smith, Bush’s original choice for the post in 1999, was now available. He wasn’t.
Ha ha. As soon as Fred Smith learned that Rumsfeld was on the outs, he immediately hid and told his wife to disconnect the telephone. Because he ran a mail company! A MAIL COMPANY!
Why did Bush love this mailman so much? Probably because they were frat brothers at Yale, where George W. Bush met most people he knew. Fred Smith did serve in the Marines, though, so he would be the perfect candidate for privatizing the military, and what remained of the Postal Service.
MAIL MAN/SANTELLI ’12.
{ 37 comments }
What a crazy idea. Everyone knows that the head of a horse organization would do a much better job. Oh sorry, I meant a horse’s a$$ would do a much better job.
Bush only hired people who were in his line of site. Such a visionary….
Is there a reason why “frat brothers” links to the EDIT page of Wikipedia? Shady…
Delivering mail is like fighting a war, except that the airplanes drop off the used underwear of porn stars (acquired in an eBay auction) instead of bombs.
The more I learn, it’s a wonder we survived the GW Bush years. Frightening.
Now that my doom is imminent, they ball roll into one.
[re=527294]canadasteve[/re]: “What can Brownie do for you?”
[re=527297]herpezhilton[/re]: WARBLOG! (No, not really.)
Fred “Sonic” Smith for Defense Secretary? Does Patti Smith know about this?
The bar wasn’t just low for the Bushies, it was six feet under the fucking ground.
Similarly, where I to become president, I’d pick my brother as Secretary of Education – he’s a teacher, so of course he’d be qualified to run all the nation’s schools.
But what do you expect from the guy who thought his personal lawyer belonged on the Supreme Court? I’m surprised he didn’t put Neil onto the Fed; after all, the guy ran bank (into the ground, but still).
Of course, the one time it would’ve actually been useful to turn to someone personally close to him, for advice on going to war with Iraq, he didn’t do so; probably out of a combination of psychiatric issues, and knowing the answer would be “don’t do it. How did I produce such an idiot?”
When it absolutely, positively has to kill the brownz.
You’re doing a heck of a job, Smithy!
[re=527310]JMP[/re]: My brother is a bartender, could you hook him up as ATF Director?
At the time, Sarah Palin was busy as mayor of Wasilla and Liz Cheney was being schtupped by Michael Goldfarb, so, yeah, going postal was logical.
“Why did Bush love this mailman so much?”
Because he DELIVERS, man.
Worked for McNamara. What could go wrong?
He probably would have shipped a “candygram” to Osama Bin Ladin and then it would have been unneccesary to start two wars.
I love the phrase Me, Poop, Trash, & Gargoyles so much that I will probably use it as the title to my own autobiography.
[re=527315]Barry White Zombie[/re]: As long as he also either smokes or owns a gun; ’cause two out of three ain’t bad.
I’ve also got a college buddies who both spent a year semester studying abroad, and knows four languages; she’d make a perfect Secretary of State.
You would have thought it would be possible to find somebody worse than Rumsfeld, but you’d be wrong!
[re=527296]bored with gravity[/re]: Same deal with Harriet Myers — he needed to appoint somebody, she walked by in the corridor, and he said, “Hey, Harriet — are you real busy right now?”
Did you get to the part yet where Bush wanted to appoint the CEO of L’Oreal to head NASA?
Maybe Smith was on that island doing his own dental work when Rove was looking for him.
[re=527310]JMP[/re]: Are you referring to that FedEx guy’s airhead best friend, Wilson?
[re=527328]V572625694[/re]: and Alberto Gonzales was giving Bush a handjob when the attorney general’s office became vacant….
[re=527326]JMP[/re]: JMP she would have more foreign experience than sarah palin, i tell you what!
That pile of Fed Ex boxes he’s leaning on is about to topple over on him. Making him perfectly qualified to be Bush’s SecDef.
[re=527300]proudgrampa[/re]: I believe the person he named ambassador to China was one of his Yale buddies. It was a startling oversight: the guy was supposedly pretty good. GWB had to make up for this by finding the weirdest people possible to fill jobs at DOJ.
“It had to be a seamless move from the old secretary of defense to the new, and we couldn’t make that happen. That summer, I looked into whether FedEx CEO Fred Smith, Bush’s original choice for the post in 1999, was now available. He wasn’t.”
3rd grade reading level?
[re=527329]BlueStateLiberal[/re]: Remember, he actually did appoint a NASA official who turned out to have lied about being a college graduate on his resume; and had tried to force actual scientists there to add “just a theory” qualifications to all mentions of the Big Bang.
[re=527333]bored with gravity[/re]: “You’re a lawyer, right? Help me out with this, Al.”
Bush kept calling me to be the Defense Secretary–he called me a couple of times. I said I’d only do it if I got to date–and I mean DATE–the twins for at least one year. And I meant both of them, at the same time. Bush thought this was funny, but he couldn’t agree to that. He offered Dee Dee Myers instead, said she’d agree to it, and I could have free access to that “special room” in the communications offices at the White House. But considering that she was one of the absolutely dumbest, most clueless press people to ever hold a government job, and that erased all good looks factors, I refused. Finally I told him to find someone else.
[re=527362]thefrontpage[/re]: Dee Dee Myers, that name, I think it belongs to a person who is a different person from the one you think is called “Dee Dee Myers.”
[re=527326]JMP[/re]: He doesn’t own a gun and he only smokes, um, well… let’s just make him DEA Administrator instead.
Come on, this guy is a former Marine who runs a company that flies planes around. He probably knows all the dirty marching chants *and* how to keep track of how many planes you have. That would’ve made him 2-for-2 on the “preferred qualifications”.
According to the article, Rove was concerned that questioning Smith in his confirmation hearing would’ve hurt the Republicans’ chances in the election, thus the waiting until afterwards for Rumsfeld to resign. So I guess keeping him on for that long cost them nothing. Except, you know, American lives, money, minds and credibility. But I’m sure Rove thinks he was focused on the important part of war — whether it wins elections back home.
[re=527405]SayItWithWookies[/re]: I always thought the most important part of war to chickenhawk Republicans was sos they could pretend to have a biggus dickus without any risk of getting it shottus offus.
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