Politics: Oops.

Slate this morning has a lengthy piece on Glenn Hubbard, Bush's chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers. The AP however, is reporting that Hubbard is departing the White House to return to teaching. After waxing poetic about the power and force of the Council, Slate talks about how Hubbard has diminished the Council's value by serving as a Bush yes-man and pursuing the tax-cuts with absolute prejudice. The piece notes that this is something unexpected, because the CEA is supposed to be rational, and Hubbard has impeccable economic credentials. Instead of representing reasoned, conservative economic thought, Hubbard appears to have been entranced by Karl Rove's touch of evil, and converted into a tax-cut zombie with a blind eye for Bush's stinky economic policy. Read:

Hubbard's fierce advocacy of specific tax reforms—both within and without the administration—has made him increasingly willing to adopt the administration's politically expedient, rather than economically sound, justifications for its proposals. It's not fair to expect Hubbard to check his beliefs at the White House door, nor is it objectionable that Hubbard is a conservative economist—after all, he's been one for years. The problem is that his eagerness to enact his preferred legislation has made him willing to adopt the bad logic of the administration's talking points and spin. In Hubbard's book, the best policy is tax reform, not honesty.

Oddly, Slate also makes a weird prediction about Hubbard's future:

Interestingly, despite all Hubbard's influence in the Bush White House, the press continues to chatter about rumors that he's heading to the Treasury Department as deputy secretary. It's a great idea—the Treasury Department is supposed to lobby for specific administration proposals. From there, Hubbard could push for his vision of tax reform to his heart's content. He could be, as Fred Barnes approvingly wrote, "a player" and "a lot more than an economist." And the White House could have a real CEA chairman again.

But they're pretty much totally wrong on that. The AP piece (citing a report in the Wall Street Journal, AKA the unlinkable paper) says that White House officials emphasized that Hubbard wasn't being forced out like Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill. I guess being a yes-man can be tiresome.