Judge A Man By His Friends

I’ve been trying to put together a voting guide to give you the “pro” case for each major candidate. Unfortunately, every time I start gathering “pro” information, certain candidates come out with more “con” reasons, candidates like Mitt Romney. The latest example is that Romney keeps hiring former Bush people. Ugh.

Hiring Bushies is bad in and of itself. Whether you liked Bush the person or not, the fact is he was not a conservative. From needlessly raising CAFE standards, to the Ted Kennedy No Child Left Behind Act, to expanding bankrupt Medicare to cover prescription drugs, to failing entirely to prepare for post-war Iraq, to opening the doors of the Treasury to Goldman Sachs, to doing nothing to lower the nation’s regulatory burden, to his tinkering tax cuts which did nothing to increase the national incentive to work, to TARP. . . Bush was no conservative.

His staff was worse, as they’ve continued to prove over and over again now that they are out of the White House. They bleed RINO blue and spend their days attacking conservatives and pimping for lobbyists. The advice they give is “surrender” and “stop being so partisan.” They never have unkind words for liberals, but somehow can’t find anything good to say about conservatives. So who in their right mind would bring these people onto their team? Romney.

And it gets worse.

The latest former Bush staffer in question is Alex Mistri. Beside being a Bushie, Mistri was a registered lobbyist for Solyndra. Yes, that Solyndra. This is one of the bigger Obama scandals and should become one of the bigger clubs with which the Republican nominee will beat Obama during the election. Hiring Solyndra’s lobbyist all but prohibits Romney from making that attack -- in fact, it basically says there was nothing criminal involving Solyndra. This is beyond stupid. Hiring this man at this time tells us something is very wrong with Romney’s judgment.

The next Bushie is Jim Connaughton, a big firm attorney and energy company lobbyist. Connaughton was the architect of Bush’s climate plan when he was Chairman of the White House Council on Environmental Quality. This is the same White House that mandated the use of renewable fuels in 2005 and raised fuel economy standards at the urging of the Democrats when he was a lame duck. Near the end of Bush’s term, Connaughton even embraced a national goal for controlling “greenhouse gases,” i.e. regulation to stop global warming.

The other Bushie is Greg Mankiw, the former chairman of Bush’s Council of Economic Advisers. Mankiw was an “outspoken advocate” for a carbon tax. His current job is to help craft Romney’s jobs agenda.... presumably destroying jobs, not making jobs. In September 2007, Mankiw wrote this in the New York Times:

“There is a broad consensus. The scientists tell us that world temperatures are rising because humans are emitting carbon into the atmosphere. Basic economics tells us that when you tax something, you normally get less of it. So if we want to reduce global emissions of carbon, we need a global carbon tax.”

Maybe we should tax stupidity.

Since Romney is noted for his flip-flops on global warming, these last two choices are downright foolish. What should we trust? Should we believe Romney’s recent conversion to global warming skepticism? Or should it concern us that he’s filling his team with global warming enthusiasts?

Finally, as we mentioned yesterday, Cain is being smeared with unidentified sexual harassment allegations. It is worth mentioning again, that Bushie Karl Rove, who has been acting as an unofficial Romney cheerleader on Fox, has jumped on this along with the MSM and is trying to smear Cain. Way to go Karl.

Whether we believe these people will influence Romney the wrong way or not, their hiring demonstrates a lack of judgment by Romney. In hiring them, Romney defuses two strong issues which should be used against Obama and instantly raises skepticism in conservative ranks that he is who we fear he is -- an establishment, dead-center technocrat. Yet, he gets NO benefit from hiring them because whatever wisdom they may bring is readily available in less offensive personages all over the country. So doing this was stupid. Romney gave himself a self-inflicted wound and got no benefit for it in return. That’s not the kind of judgment we want in a Republican President.