Why Oh Why Are We Ruled by These Morons?

From Mark Thoma:

Economist's View: Democrats in the Closet: just received an interesting email:

From "Imperial Life in the Emerald City" by Rajiv Chandrasekaran, the former chief Washington Post correspondent in Iraq, pub date Sept. 22, p. 81:

Bumper stickers and mouse pads praising President Bush were standard desk decorations in the Republican Palace. Other than military uniforms, "Bush-Cheney 2004" T-shirts were the most common piece of clothing. (Dan Senor, Bremer's spokesman, wore one for a Thanksgiving Day "Turkey Trot" road race in the Green Zone.) CPA staffers weren't worried about employment prospects after Baghdad. "Oh, I'll just work on the campaign" - the Bush-Cheney reelection campaign - several told me.

"I'm not here for the Iraqis," one staffer said. "I'm here for George Bush." When Gordon Robison, a staffer in the Strategic Communications office, opened a care package from his mother to find a book by Paul Krugman, a liberal New York Times columnist, people around him stared. "It was like I had just unwrapped a radioactive brick," he recalled. The CPA did have a small contingent of Democrats. Most were soldiers and diplomats who, by law, could not be queried about their political leanings... The group faced regular harassment from hardcore Republicans... Their posters were either ripped from the bulletin board or defaced with pro-Republican graffiti.... One... compared being a Democrat in the Green Zone to being gay in a small town. "If you know what's good for you, you stay in the closet," he said...

It would have been nice for the American people to know the state of play in Paul Bremer's Viceroyalty in 2004, wouldn't it?