Why Rachel Maddow is ‘thankful’ Bush administration is ending

therawstory
by David Edwards

What is it about the Bush administration that makes people so thankful it’s ending?


MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow put together a list of Bush officials that have been indicted or resigned abruptly in order to recall “just how bad the bad old times have been.”

Former assistant to the President Felipe Sixto was charged with stealing from a Cuba-related nonprofit organization. Edgar Johnson, who worked for the Department of the Interior, was charged with taking bribes. Julia McDonald, deputy assistant secretary at the Department of the Interior, resigned after an investigation found she gave government documents to lobbyists.

The number two person at the department of the interior, Steven Griles, was sentenced to 10 months as a part of the Jack Abramoff Scandal. Abramoff was also responsible for taking down Roger Stillwell from the Office of Insular Affairs, Robert Coughlin, who was chief of the criminal division at the Justice Department, and David Safavian, who was chief of staff in the General Services Administration.

Lester Crawford, Commissioner of the Food and Drug Administration, who resigned and pled guilty to holding stock in companies that he was regulating. Claude Allen was the assistant to the president for domestic policy. He resigned for a scheme of defrauding Target stores.

Brian Doyle was deputy press secretary for Homeland Security. He went to prison for child porn. Frank Figueroa also worked for Homeland Security as head of Operation Predator and got in trouble for exposing himself to a girl in a mall.

John Korsmo, chairman of the Federal Housing Board, was convicted of lying about inviting banks that he was supposed to be regulating to a fundraiser for a Congressional candidate. His wife — deputy chief of staff at the Labor Department — also lost her job in the scandal.

Head of the ATF, Charles Truscott, resigned for ordering employees to help his child with a school project.

Ken Tomlinson was chairman for public broadcasting and resigned after he was exposed for running a horse racing operation out of his office.

The executive director of the CIA, Dusty Foggo, pleaded guilty in the Duke Cunningham bribery scandal.

Janet Rehnquist, who is daughter of the late Supreme Court Justice, resigned from her position as Inspector General after it was learned she delayed an audit of Florida’s pension fund at the request of Jeb Bush.

Deputy assistant secretary for Fish, Wildlife and Parks David Smith, resigned after killing a buffalo and accepting the corpse as a gift.

Philip Cooney was chief of staff at the White House Council on Environmental Quality and resigned when it was discovered that he revised scientific reports on global warming. A press aide at NASA, George Deutsch, resigned for keeping the governments’ top scientist from talking about climate change.

The administrator of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, Thomas Scully, resigned after pressuring employees to say the medicare drug bill would costs less than it really would. Sean Tunnis, also of Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, faked documentation about his medical education.

Bernie Kerik was going to be head of Homeland Security before he was indicted. Scooter Libby, the vice presidents chief of staff, was convicted on four felony counts of lying in the CIA leak case. And finally, Alberto Gonzales, who resigned from his position as Attorney General after being accused of lying to Congress about the firing of nine U.S. Attorneys.

This video is from MSNBC’s The Rachel Maddow Show, broadcast Nov. 26, 2008.
(Source)