Falling like Flies

Wonkette has compiled a list of Bush administration officials, Bush appointees and/or Congressional Republicans that have been indicted/convicted/abruptly resigned "to spend more time with their families." I will now shamelessly reproduce it here:

Ken Lay — indicted, convicted, sentenced, killed

J. Clifford Baxter — sued over Enron ripoffs, killed

Thomas Noe — Coingate/Bush Pioneer indicted, convicted, imprisoned

David H. Safavian — Bush aide/Abramoff agent indicted, resigned, convicted, imprisoned

John Ashcroft — why did Soaring Eagle resign? Plamegate? Anyway, he immediately became one of K Street’s top lobbyists.

Michael Brown — resigns as FEMA boss after Katrina disaster

Scooter Libby — indicted, resigned

Jack Abramoff — indicted, convicted, imprisoned, still bringing people down

Lil’ Jacks — Ralph Reed, Grover Norquist, Michael Scanlon, Conrad Burns, John Doolittle, James Dobson, Richard Shelby, various other crooks

Duke Cunningham — indicted, resigned, convicted, imprisoned

Kyle “Dusty” Foggo — resigns No. 3 CIA post, investigated by CIA Inspector General over Hookergate

Porter Goss — resigns CIA chief job along with Foggo

Claude Allen — Bush’s top domestic policy adviser resigns to “spend more time with family,” actually caught robbing local department stores

Andrew Card — Resigns as CoS to “spend more time with family”

Scott McClellan — Resigns as WH spokesman to spend more time with Andrew Card’s family

Tom DeLay — resigns as Speaker and then as congressman for being a crook & all-around asshole

Phillip Merrill — ExIm Bank boss, undersecretary of defense & NATO ambassador, assassinated

William H. Lash — assistant secretary of commerce, “shoots self”

Bob Ney — indicted, convicted, resigns, rehab, prison

Ted Stevens — Feds raid family offices and homes in Alaska

Mark Foley — resigned, rehab, FBI investigating

Susan Ralston — resigned as Karl Rove’s special aide after Abramoff bribes revealed

Curt Weldon — FBI raids homes and offices of family and business associates; grand jury about to indict

Lester Crawford — resigns FDA, indicted by DoJ, pleads guilty

That's quite a list. If I were truely dedicated, I'd make this a post somewhere on the side bar and keep updating it as the investigations that are surely to come after november start bringing other BushCo. criminals out of the wood work - but I'm not. So this is all you get.

Culture of CorruptionRepublicans Bush Administration

I'm shocked. SHOCKED!

From the Washington Post:

Ties to GOP Trumped Know-How Among Staff Sent to Rebuild Iraq

Adapted from "Imperial Life in the Emerald City," by Rajiv Chandrasekaran, copyright Knopf 2006

After the fall of Saddam Hussein's government in April 2003, the opportunity to participate in the U.S.-led effort to reconstruct Iraq attracted all manner of Americans -- restless professionals, Arabic-speaking academics, development specialists and war-zone adventurers. But before they could go to Baghdad, they had to get past Jim O'Beirne's office in the Pentagon.

To pass muster with O'Beirne, a political appointee who screens prospective political appointees for Defense Department posts, applicants didn't need to be experts in the Middle East or in post-conflict reconstruction. What seemed most important was loyalty to the Bush administration.

O'Beirne's staff posed blunt questions to some candidates about domestic politics: Did you vote for George W. Bush in 2000? Do you support the way the president is fighting the war on terror? Two people who sought jobs with the U.S. occupation authority said they were even asked their views on Roe v. Wade .

Jaws all over the world are hitting the floor in absolute stupification. In the last five years, Republicans, and the Bush Administration in particular, have been nothing but paragons competence. They have worked studiously to find the most qualified experts to weigh in on all subjects and preside over all situations. Always idolizing the candidate who is most educated, most enlightened, and most experienced, the GOP has gone so far as to eschew the less precise arguments, emotion, feeling, belief, and passion when deciding how best to steer the Ship of State. After such stunning triumphs as Harriet Miers, the following must be the shock of the century.

Many of those chosen by O'Beirne's office to work for the Coalition Provisional Authority, which ran Iraq's government from April 2003 to June 2004, lacked vital skills and experience. A 24-year-old who had never worked in finance -- but had applied for a White House job -- was sent to reopen Baghdad's stock exchange. The daughter of a prominent neoconservative commentator and a recent graduate from an evangelical university for home-schooled children were tapped to manage Iraq's $13 billion budget, even though they didn't have a background in accounting.

It seems that with the exception of 'right-wing street cred' I'm just as qualified as the gentleman who was in charge of the foundations of Iraq's economy.

As I've already noted, people are starting to notice that when you let ideology trump the real world, things don't work out very well. After this revelation, I don't see how anybody can think that the handling of Iraq was in the same room with competent.

George W. Bush Incompetence War in Iraq Jim O'Beirne