What's in the cards for loyal Andy? (Oliphant alert)

Boston Globe ^ | December 7, 2004 | Thomas Oliphant

[RWR8189]

WASHINGTON
PRESIDENT BUSH'S emphasis on loyalty as opposed to stature has met its ultimate test. He has saved the biggest of his choices -- the anemic Treasury Department -- for last. The issue can be defined simply: Does he have the nerve to promote his chief of staff, Andrew Card, to the position Card appears to covet? And does he have the nerve to thumb his nose at the tut-tutters who would fault such an appointment on qualification grounds?

Recent history would compel a "yes" to both questions, but in an administration in which secrecy is second only to loyalty, recent history also compels a hedge or two.

What is at stake is the position that will matter far more in Bush's second term than it did in his first. In the first term, the first treasury secretary was counted on to perform a very easy task -- be a salesmen for repeated tax cuts in the face initially of a huge budget surplus and later of a lid's-off fiscal atmosphere following the 9/11 attacks. The second treasury secretary was counted on simply to roam the country and claim that all was well with the economy.

This time around, the stakes are much higher -- the new secretary will be in the middle of an effort to upset the Social Security and income tax apple carts while avoiding a dollar collapse and interest rate explosion now that deficits have gone past the stratosphere.

[Big Digger]

Anything, repeat, anything, Oliphant writes is an ass-kissing, liberal, suck-o-rama. I hope he wins the Crush Kerry annoying pundit sweepstakes.

[Cicero]

I'm not going to defend Oliphant. But appointing Card to the Treasury would be a mistake. He would lack the respect of the financial community, which is absolutely essential. No matter how competent he is, he's just not qualified for this job.

[The Old Hoosier]

I agree. In fact, Oliphant is not wholly off base with this. Now that he's got his nose back out of Kerry's a$$, he must be thinking a little more clearly.

What is at stake is the position that will matter far more in Bush's second term than it did in his first. In the first term, the first treasury secretary was counted on to perform a very easy task -- be a salesmen for repeated tax cuts in the face initially of a huge budget surplus and later of a lid's-off fiscal atmosphere following the 9/11 attacks. The second treasury secretary was counted on simply to roam the country and claim that all was well with the economy.

This time around, the stakes are much higher -- the new secretary will be in the middle of an effort to upset the Social Security and income tax apple carts while avoiding a dollar collapse and interest rate explosion now that deficits have gone past the stratosphere.