The Larry Kane Report

President George W. Bush has been a President who has placed the comfort of friends above the need for competence in government. Flame thrower Karl Rove elected the President and then all but destroyed his administration. The President’s FEMA chief was an embarrassment. He stayed with a faulty Donald Rumsfeld through six years of mistakes. Any cabinet member who disagreed was shown the door. Some, like Christie Whitman, got out before the pink slip came.

This has been a sad game in Washington - a President misled by clearly incompetent people. a variety of “yes” men.

Now, his good friend, Alberto Gonzalez, is leaving as Attorney General. The President calls it “sad.” It is sad, for who, the President, or the people who voted to elect him.

Great leadership is all about hiring good people and trusting them and their instincts. Abe Lincoln hired his political enemes, realizing that their brilliance was more important than their loyalty as friends.

One of the real startling aspects of this administration has been its failure to use what was once a fantastic communications team to really make contact with voters. Instead, the communicators have spent most of the time defending, not promoting the government.

At the top of the “most troubled” list is the Vice President who has led the right wing of American politics to repudiation and doubt because of his delusionary arguments about Iraq.  The VP is going nowhere. but his incredible impact on the President’s decisions is making this part of our history a period that historians will shake their heads at, wondering why opportunity was squandered.

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Terry Madonna and Michael Young, his polling partner at Franklin and Marshall College, have completed a fascinating essay on why Pa. Governor Ed Rendell could be the Vice Presidential choice on the Democratic ticket.

To that, I add that geography is no longer important. Whether its Hillary or Barack, Rendell would bring vitality to that ticket.

I wanted to share with you excerpts from the F and M discussion.

From…….

Politically Uncorrected

By

G. Terry Madonna & Michael L. Young

“The critical benchmarks for that choice are well established: vice-presidential candidates are vetted for their ideological and personal compatibility with the presidential candidate. They must also pass some minimal test for presidential succession, and they must carry with them the electoral votes of their own states.

On all of these grounds, Rendell is a strong contender for the vice-presidential nomination. He is, first of all, a successful two-term governor in a year that virtually all observers believe the number two spot will go to a governor. As Governor, Rendell achieved a substantial portion of his policy agenda in his first term despite having to work with a Republican majority in the legislature.

Equally important, Rendell has great appeal to suburban voters who are now the key electorate in presidential elections. Rendell’s strength in the suburbs has been largely responsible for his decisive Pennsylvania victories. In 2006, he won 70 percent of the vote in the Philadelphia suburbs. And in state politics, Rendell’s suburban popularity has become a catalyst shifting Pennsylvania away from the GOP.

Then, too, Rendell’s extraordinary Philadelphia mayoral tenure provides him with a success story in salvaging the City from fiscal insolvency and resuscitating center city development. Tagged “ America ’s Mayor” by Al Gore, Rendell’s urban policy bona fides are impressive by any measure.

Finally, he is a brilliant campaigner, as even his opponents will attest, who has raised more campaign money than any other politician in Pennsylvania history.

This is an impressive array of political assets, but Rendell brings to the race something even more important: he puts Pennsylvania solidly in the Democratic column. The State is a key in the Electoral College sweepstakes–arguably one of three along with Ohio and Florida that could make the difference in 2008. With Rendell on the ticket, the Keystone State is a slam dunk for Democrats–without Rendell on the ballot it could be dicey.”

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Don’t look now but we have living civics lesson of how our system works.

As early as 10 months ago, elements of the government, the real estate industry and the homebuilding companies were complaining about incessant media coverage of a possible meltdown in the lending industry.

Not only was the homebuilding industry on the ropes, many news organizations reported, but mortgage foreclosures were increasing at a rapid rate. It was so bad that some communities in the west were crumbling and economic uncertainty was around the corner.

There were numerous reports on the subject in the fall and winter of last year. Mortgage industry experts complained of panic reporting. The truth can be painful, but the truth is the truth. Some industry experts were brazen enough to accuse reporters and editors of scare tactics , and reporting a story that really wasn’t there..

We now know that the reporting was right on target and that the so called mortgage meltdown was for real and that American journalism was right on target. Not that anyone in government took it seriously enough to try to head it off.

The bottom line on this story is that American journalism, often under attack for wishy-washy and fashy-trashy reporting, usually is ahead of the curve on the big ones

Remember the mortgage meltdown when some brain-child in government tells you what you should read, hear and see. Companies in trouble and governments in trouble often lie at a disgusting pace..

That’s why our business, often flawed and never perfect, is around with solid reporting when it counts.

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The resignation of the President’s top aide has official Washington buzzing. Frankly, it is a mystery to me.

Karl Rove, the controversial adviser, will step down  in a few weeks. It is surprising because Rove is not a quitter. He and George W. Bush have been attached at the hip politically for almost two decades.

Rove has been the architect of almost every major political policy in the last six and a half years. More than that, he’s been at the center of every investigation of the administration from the CIA leak case to the current US attorneys firing scandal.

Frankly.. his resignation at this point is most unusual, and Washington insiders including two of my sources in the US senate wonder if the resignation of the closest man to George W. Bush may be an effort to wipe the slate clean as the Presidents heads to his final 17 months in offic.

Of course, there are sinister perspectives, including the insinuation that Rove might be in legal trouble, and that a departure might fend off Congressional investigations.

No one knows for sure. No one ever expected that Karl Rove wouldn ‘t be there at the end.

Although Rove will be gone,  I can assure you that the President will still rely heavily on his advice, for better or worse. Critics of the administration have been very quiet about the Rove move, leading to speculation that something big is behind it.

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Of all the hypocrisy flowing from the governments in our country, none is more alarming than the antiquated view of safety in school buses. You may be surprised to know that there are no safety standards for school buses in America. NONE!

The use of seat belts has long been attributed to preventing injuries in cars, where they are required and planes where they have been part of the routine since the beginning of commercial flying. For years, the bus industry lobby has fought the inclusion of seat belts because of the cost and changes in construction modes. 17,000 children are injured every year in school bus accidents in the U.S. Fatal injuries are on the rise.

There are those naysayers who feel that the installation of seat belts is actually a negative. Find them and find out what fantasy-land they’re living.

The question is: Do you want to risk your loved ones to an accident that could cause victims to be thrown around the bus, risking serious injury or even worse?

Sunday night at 9:30 on my Voice of Reason show on CN 8, The Comcast Network, two experts in the field, Dr. Dennis Durbin of Children’s Hospital and Dr. Alan Ross, head of a national safety task force, examine the reasons why not having seat belts in buses is a prescription for disaster.

While we’re on that subject: There are no seat belts required on high speed trains or commercial buses. Imagine traveling at 140 MPH on a train and what could happened in a sudden stop or crash.

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