Bush and Ca (cabal) scandal sheet

Did you have trouble keeping track of all the Bush Administration officials who have been accused of corruption and/or resigned in the face of scandal?

You can start 2008 with an updated list, to which you can then add the fresh faces that appear before Bush leaves office.* Go to "TPM's Great List of Scandalized Administration Officials," posted yesterday by Paul Kiel.

Below are all the names. If you’re consumed with curiosity about the scandal associated with each of these persons, go to the post.

Indicted / Convicted/ Pled Guilty
Eric G. Andell, Claude Allen, Lester Crawford, Brian Doyle, Steven Griles, John T. Korsmo, Scooter Libby, David Safavian, Robert Stein, and Roger Stillwell.

Resigned Due to Investigation, Pending Investigation or Allegations of Impropriety
Philip Cooney, George Deutsch, Michael Elston, Kyle Dustin “Dusty” Foggo, Alberto Gonzales, Monica Goodling, Michelle Larson, John T. Korsmo, Howard "Cookie" Krongard, Julie MacDonald, Paul McNulty, Richard Perle, Susan Ralston, Janet Rehnquist, James Roche, Kyle Sampson, Joseph, Bradley Schlozman, Thomas Scully, David John Tanner, Sara Taylor, Ken Tomlinson, Carl Truscott, and Paul Wolfowitz.

Nomination Failed Due to Scandal
Linda Chavez, Timothy Flanigan, Bernard Kerik, and William Hans von Spakovsky.

Under Investigation But Still in Office
Stuart Bowen, Lurita Doan, and Alfonso Jackson

*My hope, of course, is that Bush and Cheney will be impeached, thereby limiting the 2008 additions to the list, but enough citizens do not appear to be upset about the lawlessness of the current regime.

(Bush with shredder – Salon.com)

Frank Rich explains why I can't keep up with Bush Administration malfeasance

Frank Rich, who writes a Sunday op ed column for the New York Times, writes from a perspective that involves taking a step or two back so he can view the “bigger picture.”

In my March 19 post, I excerpted from Rich’s op ed, The Ides of March 2003, a chronology “of some of the high points and low points in the days leading up to the national train wreck whose anniversary we mourn this week.”

This past Sunday, Rich’s column, Earth to G.O.P: The Gipper is Dead (subscription required but reposted here) cleared up why I’m having such a hard time saving, reading, and trying to write about what the Bush Administration is doing.

The focus of the article was the first Republican presidential debate and the prospects for any Republican Presidential candidate in 2008. According to Rich, “Aside from tax cuts and a wall on the Mexican border, the only issue that energized the presidential contenders was Ronald Reagan.”

Rich then takes a step back and looks at the Bush Administration through a telephoto lens: “… it could be argued that the Iraq fiasco, disastrous to American interests as it is, actually masks the magnitude of the destruction this presidency has visited both on the country in general and the G.O.P. in particular.

“By my rough, conservative calculation — feel free to add — there have been corruption, incompetence, and contracting or cronyism scandals in these cabinet departments: Defense, Education, Justice, Interior, Homeland Security, Veterans Affairs, Health and Human Services, and Housing and Urban Development. I am not counting State, whose deputy secretary, a champion of abstinence-based international AIDS funding, resigned last month in a prostitution scandal, or the General Services Administration, now being investigated for possibly steering federal favors to Republican Congressional candidates in 2006. Or the Office of Management and Budget, whose chief procurement officer was sentenced to prison in the Abramoff fallout. I will, however, toss in a figure that reveals the sheer depth of the overall malfeasance: no fewer than four inspectors general, the official watchdogs charged with investigating improprieties in each department, are themselves under investigation simultaneously — an all-time record.”

No wonder I’m having a hard time keeping up!

(photo of Frank Rich – ColbertNation.com)