Bartlett Dishes Dirt

Dan Bartlett, President Bush's recently retired counsel and propagandist, is feeling liberated. No longer bound by the decorum and constraints of etiquette that his former job demanded, Mr. Bartlett is dishing dirt about the current crop of Republicans seeking to take over residence at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. Of course, one should always take what Bartlett, or any other former presidential spokesperson, has to say with an ample handful of salt. Still, his observations don't seem that far off.


There was more to Bartlett's remarks.

On Fred Thompson's laziness: his "biggest liability was whether he had the fire in the belly to run for office int he first place and be president. So what does he do? He waits four months, fires a bunch of staff, has a big staff turnover, has a lot of back-biting, comes out with his big campaign launch and gives a very incoherent and not very concise stump speech for why he's running for president.

On Mitt Romney's flip-flopping: "I think they saw a different primary early on, when they were setting himself up to run. they thought it was going to be a much more conservative field, so they are trying to solidify his conservative credentials... ...It has caused him a lot of problems."

Bartlett seems to like Rudy Giuliani and Mike Huckabee, though he considers it unlikely that the latter can actually win. One thing is clear, Bartlett Unleashed is a whole lot more interesting than Presidential Talking Points Dan.

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