I say Yes, You say No, I say Good-bye

I say high, you say low.
You say why? And I say I don't know, ask Dick Cheney.
With apologies to Lennon & McCartney’s Hello Good-bye

Stepford-Wife administrator Condoleezza Rice, the national security adviser and long a confidante of the Bush/Corleone family has apparently been rewarded by replacing Secretary of the State Collin Powell.

President George W. Bush wants only to be surrounded by people who will tell him yes. When Paul O’Neill, Bush’s first Secretary of the Treasury, told him no, your tax cuts are ill conceived because you will place the country in such a deficit it will take three generations to dig out. John Snow, chairman of CSX, the country’s largest railroad, soon replaced the fired O’Neill.

Powell had a brain and a logical mindset that realized people will follow easier through persuasion rather than being ordered and forced. Bush picked him before the U.S. Supreme Court appointed Bush president. This move made Bush look like a moderate and help win the public relations war during the 2000 election debacle.

Powell was often the lone voice in the Bush administration cautioning restraint and the pursuit of diplomacy. In the summer of 2002, Powell personally cautioned Bush that he would be "the proud owner of 25 million people" if he invaded Iraq and would be responsible for "all their hopes, aspirations and problems," Bob Woodward wrote in his book "Plan of Attack."

Powell privately called this the Pottery Barn rule, meaning that if you break it, you own it. And, the way The Misanthrope sees it, the hawks want nothing more than to own Iraq and all its oil. Powell's position put him at odds with other top administration officials, notably Vice President Dick Cheney and Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld.