In case you're wondering what's up with the new(er) Bush administration (Rummy serving penance in the Middle East), Ron Suskind's OP-ED in today's NYTimes presents a good take on the new cabinet: "The Cabinet of Incuriosities":

Mr. Bush has never been comfortable in America's so-called meritocracy. Undistinguished in college, business school and in the private sector, he spent nearly 30 years sitting in seminar rooms and corporate suites while experts and high achievers held forth.

Now it appears that he's having his revenge—speaking loudly in his wave of second-term cabinet nominations for a kind of anti-meritocracy: the idea that anyone, properly encouraged and supported, can do a thoroughly adequate job, even better than adequate, in almost any endeavor.

It's an empowering, populist idea—especially for those who, for whtever reason, have felt wrongly excluded or disrespected—that is embodied in the story of Mr. Bush himself: a man with virtually no experience in foreign affairs or national domestic policy who has been a uniquely forceful innovator in both realms.

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Now that Mr. Bush has won his final campaign and holds high a gleaming national mandate, he can be even more himself. And for Mr. Bush, personality is destiny. What you do is not as important as whether you are deemed morally sound and trustworth. In other words, a "good" man—or woman—beats a leading expert every time.

I.E. living in a state of "grace" is what really counts. Suskind doesn't quite tie this element up with his OP-ED piece, but one must note that his view of Bush fits with Bush's fundamentalist's views: one is blessed without any human rationalization for the "blessing." One can either then be humble as a result or proud. The earthquake didn't kill me because it occured on the other side of the world. That's a blessing. I can either feel thankful and humble or I can feel proud and justified in my circumstances.