The Congressional Record from yesterday contains an interesting speech (with additional text) by U.S. Representative Rahm Emanuel.

This speech should be read by anyone who is seriously concerned about the future of the United States. In this article, you’ll read a long list — not limited to Paul O’Neill and Richard Clarke — of people who have been committed to the improvement, advancement and security of the United States and who have either left, or been forced out, of the Bush Administration after deciding that George Bush & Co. are distinctly not interested in those same things. (To be fair, some have indicated only that Bush & Co. are just inept in trying to provide these things.) As one person on the list put it before being forced by the Bush Administration to say that he didn’t really mean it: “It’s the reign of the Mayberry Machiavellis.”

I don’t know. If I were Andy Griffith, I’d be trying to make a run around New York Times v. Sullivan (376 U.S. 254, 1964) to sue for defamation of character.

At any rate, Emanuel asks some serious questions that deserve serious answers. Among them? If these people are as horrible as the current Bush Administration is painting them to be, then how did they manage to function for so long in Washington? Why did President Reagan, the first President Bush, President Clinton and even the current President Bush trust Richard Clarke if, in the end, he’s unpatriotic, lacks professionalism, has no integrity and is not loyal to his country? How did Army Chief of Staff General Eric Shineski get to be not just a general, but the Army Chief of Staff if he could be “wildly off the mark” at estimating the number of troops that would be required to occupy Iraq as the White House said he was when he first made his statement? Why did the President fire his own chairman of the Council of Economic Advisors for saying that the Iraq war was going to cost $200 billion? Isn’t it actually turning out to cost even more?

America needs a President who knows how to run our country to the benefit of the American people. Barring that, it would be nice to at least have one who had more on his mind than burying the truth and proclaiming himself “The War President.”