Sidney Blumenthal, who’s normally quite bright, seems to have stubbed his toe:

No one predicted just how radical a president George W. Bush would be. Neither his opponents, nor the reporters covering him, nor his closest campaign aides suggested that he would be the most willfully radical president in American history.

Susie Madrak begs to disagree:

"... I have to wonder (again) why they couldn’t see. I mean, it wasn’t rocket science: I simply looked at Bush’s personal history of continued failure and evasion of responsibility, his past enthusiastic embrace of his campaign duties as his father’s “dirty tricks” director, his political track record in Texas and his selection of running mate Dick Cheney, who for some reason, was universally hailed as an elder statesman by the Beltway establishment. (Ew. Ick.) And of course, there was the drug and alcohol abuse.

Add that to my gut, which told me he was a spoiled little rich boy.

I remember I was in physical therapy for my neck at the time of his campaign, and my Republican PT (for some reason, they all seem to be Republicans) was announcing his intention to vote for Bush. I told him he was nuts; I asked why on earth he’d put someone who had no real success in charge of the country.

He gave me the “says what he means and means what he says” response. I said okay, but he has no experience that prepared him for something like this.

“I thought about that,” he said. “But he has Dick Cheney, so that makes me feel better.”

Oy. So I switched tactics. “Have you ever worked for an owner-operated business?” I asked. Sure, all the time, he said.

“Ever work for one where the boss retired and put his son in charge?” Actually, yes, he had.

“Tell me if you’ve ever seen anything like this. The father knows the kid doesn’t know his ass from a hole in the ground, so he leaves his best guy there to reassure the other employees, keep things running smoothly. Because he knows his kid can’t be trusted.

“Okay, so dad leaves, and for the first year or so, everything’s fine. But then junior decides he doesn’t need anybody to tell him what to do and starts changing things. It becomes a total disaster, and the business goes down the tubes. Why? Because human nature being what it is, the whole arrangement depends on junior’s willingness to be told what to do. Once junior starts feeling his oats, he wants to make his own mark, and that means getting rid of daddy’s advisors.

“You ever see a situation like that?”

The PT aide said yes, he did. But he still thought Cheney would be the man in charge.

Well, turns out he was right. But still.

And people who say blondes are stupid have never dealt with an Uberblonde.