"That the Bush administration is openly hostile to science and book-learning is hardly new news, but it is worth reflecting on how quickly they managed to find these new sunken levels of cronyism and corruption, and what a long-term project restoring basic competence to these functions of government might yet turn out to be. We've been losing a great many experienced, apolitical career civil servants, in the Bush years, resulting in a "brain drain" in everything from the EPA to Energy to Customs to the CIA and DOD. And they're being replaced by campaign consultants, drivers, lobbyists and others who the Party owes favors to. As Hurricane Katrina proved, such cronyism has real-world consequences. But as the brief period after Hurricane Katrina also has proved, the Bush administration functions so completely from cronyism (cough*Miers*cough) that it simply doesn't know how to function any other way. - - - Hunter