Travel day for me, but I'll Leave you with this thought to chew on.

The Peter Principle was first introduced by L. Peter in a humoristic book (of the same title) describing the pitfalls of bureaucratic organization. The original principle states that in a hierarchically structured administration, people tend to be promoted up to their "level of incompetence". The principle is based on the observation that in such an organization new employees typically start in the lower ranks, but when they prove to be competent in the task to which they are assigned, they get promoted to a higher rank. This process of climbing up the hierarchical ladder can go on indefinitely, until the employee reaches a position where he or she is no longer competent. At that moment the process typically stops, since the established rules of bureacracies make that it is very difficult to "demote" someone to a lower rank, even if that person would be much better fitted and more happy in that lower position.

The net result is that most of the higher levels of a bureaucracy will be filled by incompetent people, who got there because they were quite good at doing a different (and usually, but not always, easier) task than the one they are expected to do.
[The generalized "Peter Principle"]

The President has already demonstrated that he is incompetent for the task we have already handed him, as are many in his administration. Giving him a second term may offer him a chance to fix many of the messes he created, on the theory that we could do no worse and can only go up from here. And there is a hope that Bush's on-the-job training might have done him some good. Besides, there is no position to promote him to, dammit.

One member of his staff has proved more than competent, Karl Rove, adept at politics if not policy where his portfolio is stunningly empty. Rove, though, knows how to win elections.

The "Peter Principle" will now take over, moving a more than competent bureaucrat into a higher position for which he is consumately ill equipted. Karl Rove is being promoted to policy advisor.