Bumiller is hacktastic!

Elisabeth Bumiller sinks to new depths in her work to bolster the Commander in Chief[TM]'s cult of personality.

But Mr. Bush's love of up-by-the-bootstraps stories is far more complex than that, friends and analysts say, and offers a window into the psychology of the president.

First, Mr. Bush's choices reflect the sentiments of a man who was incubated in the world of the East Coast elite but has a spent a rebellious lifetime trying to make his own way. Mr. Bush's cabinet is notably light on Ivy League graduates, and only one of his past and present choices, John Ashcroft, the departing attorney general, attended the president's undergraduate alma mater, Yale.

[...]

Second, Mr. Bush seems to identify with the hardscrabble stories, as difficult as that may be to believe about a man who was born into one of the most privileged families in the United States. As Jim Hightower, the former Texas agriculture commissioner, memorably cracked about Mr. Bush's father in comments since applied to the 43rd president: "He is a man who was born on third base and thinks he hit a triple."

Stanley A. Renshon, a psychoanalyst and political scientist at the City University of New York, argues that there is in fact something to the remark, and that Mr. Bush, who said last spring that he had to "knock on a lot of doors to follow the old man's footsteps," truly believes that he had to overcome hurdles on his way to the White House.

"He was born into a family where there were enormous expectations for the kids, and he literally spent a lifetime not measuring up," said Mr. Renshon, whose recent book, "In his Father's Shadow: The Transformations of George W. Bush," is a psychological study of the president.

"In Bush's case," Mr. Renshon added, "he follows in his father's footsteps, he doesn't make it for decades, but he keeps on plugging, and he succeeds. But I think it was very complex for him because he often didn't know where his parents' and family help ended and his own contribution picked up. He had to carve out his own sphere in a very big shadow."

Plugging away. It's hard, hard work.

But, anyway, thanks Elisabeth. I guess a good hardscrabble story trumps credentials anytime. The entire piece works to throw a smoke screen up in the face of Bush's Cabinet of Mediocrity. Kerik was the worst, using bluster and bullshit to hide his incapacity to do the job he's given through his above-average opportunism, but he is not alone in the Bush administration, starting right at the top.