Oh, left out Bush's Sec of Labor---Chow---married to Mitch McConnell. Now, not very many Senators are going to vote against Mitch McConnell's wife, if only for personal reasons. Mitch is a nice guy. A very polite and pleasant man. He's got to have more than a few fishing buddies in the Senate. You don't vote against Ms Chow if you want another bridge for your state. If that's not enough : MitcBushh was chairman of Senate re-election comm (GOP), controlling about $60m each election. He could always throw another $2m at you if vote against Ms Chow.   Point is : Bush cabinet was fairly moderate and designed to avoid conflict  and to be approved without much notice.

It was not really that far right. It could have left Sec of Education empty for 2 yrs and it could have brought Richard Perl into State or Defense, but didn't.   Bush let Powell bring Richard Armatage to State as number two man---and no person close to Bush.

Robert Gates, an old Bush friend has served Bush much better than Rumsfeld. I think Cheney has served Bush well. What has hurt Bush is not explaining himself hardly at all    :   on terrorism (i.e. mapping out strategy) on prisoners of war---not sending his Solicitor General around the country to explain the administrations position. They relied on Scalia to do it. OK, Scalia is a brilliant man, but when you wait for the court on issues like that you've waited too long. Who made those decisions? I think Karl Rove is Superman among precinct captains and a dudd on governing.

My conclusion on Bush is that he does not know when to pick his fights. Nixon was a master at that. People didn't like Nixon, but Nixon knew something at age 29 that I just learned   : SOMETIMES A FIGHT OVER A TOOTHBRUSH IS TWO TEENAGERS IN A BATHROOM, BUT SOMETIMES ITS A FIGHT FOR PROCTOR  &  GAMBLE.   Nixon could tell a from b on that score.   Bush can't.