The 43 People Who Helped Make Bu$h The Worst American President EVER

The 43 People Who Helped Make Bu$h The Worst American President EVER


The Progress Report - 16 January, 2009


Next week, "change is coming to America," as President George W. Bush
wraps up his tenure as one of the worst American presidents ever. He
wasn't able to accomplish such an ignominious feat all by himself,
however; he had a great deal of help along the way. The Progress
Report heralds the conclusion of the Bush 43 presidency by bringing
you our list of the top 43 worst Bush appointees. Did we miss anyone?
Who should have been ranked higher? Let us know what you think.


1. *** Cheney -- The worst *** since Nixon. The man who shot his
friend while in office - and then got his friend to apologize for
being shot. The "most powerful and controversial vice president."
Until he got the job, people used to actually think it was a bad
thing
that the vice presidency has historically been a do-nothing position.
Asked by PBS's Jim Lehrer about why people hate him, Cheney rejected
the premise, saying, "I don't buy that." His top placement in our
survey says otherwise.


2. Karl Rove -- There wasn't a scandal in the Bush administration
that
Rove didn't have his fingerprints all over -- see Plame, Iraq war
deception, Gov. Don Siegelman, U.S. Attorney firings, missing e-
mails,
and more. As senior political adviser and later as deputy chief of
staff, "The Architect" was responsible for politicizing nearly every
agency of the federal government.


3. Alberto Gonzales -- Fundamentally dishonest and woefully
incompetent, Gonzales was involved in a series of scandals, first as
White House counsel and then as Attorney General. Some of the most
notable: pressuring a "feeble" and "barely articulate" Attorney
General Ashcroft at his hospital bedside to sign off on Bush's
illegal
wiretapping program; approving waterboarding and other torture
techniques to be used against detainees; and leading the firing of
U.S. Attorneys deemed not sufficiently loyal to Bush.


4. Donald Rumsfeld -- After winning praise for leading the U.S.
effort
in ousting the Taliban from Afghanistan in 2001, the former Defense
Secretary strongly advocated for the invasion of Iraq and then
grossly
misjudged and mishandled its aftermath. Rumsfeld is also responsible
for authorizing the use of torture against terror detainees in U.S.
custody; according to a bipartisan Senate report, Rumsfeld "conveyed
the message that physical pressures and degradation were appropriate
treatment for detainees."


5. Michael Brown -- This former commissioner of the International
Arabian Horse Association was appointed by Bush to head FEMA in 2003.
After Katrina made landfall as a Category 4 hurricane, Brownie
promptly did a "heck of a job" bungling the government's relief
efforts, and was sent back to Washington a few days later. He was
forced to resign shortly thereafter.


6. Paul Wolfowitz -- As Deputy Secretary of Defense from 2001 to
2005,
Wolfowitz was one of the primary architects of the Iraq war, arguing
for the invasion as early as Sept. 15, 2001. Testifying before
Congress in February 2003, Wolfowitz said that it was "hard to
conceive that it would take more forces to provide stability in post-
Saddam Iraq than it would take to conduct the war itself." Wolfowitz
eventually admitted that "for bureaucratic reasons, we settled on one
issue, weapons of mass destruction," as a justification for war,
"because it was the one reason everyone [in the administration] could
agree on."


7. David Addington -- "Cheney's Cheney" was the "most powerful man
you've never heard of." As the leader of Bush's legal team and
Cheney's chief of staff, Addington was the biggest proponent of some
of Bush's most notorious legal abuses, such as torture and
warrantless
surveillance, and is a loyal follower of the so-called unitary
executive theory.


8. Stephen Johnson -- The "Alberto Gonzales of the environment," EPA
Administrator Johnson subverted the agency's mission at the behest of
the White House and corporate interests, suppressing staff
recommendations on pesticides, mercury, lead paint, smog, and global
warming.


9. Douglas Feith -- Undersecretary of Defense for Policy from
2001-2005, Feith headed up the notorious Office of Special Plans, an
in-house Pentagon intelligence shop devised by Rumsfeld and Paul
Wolfowitz to produce intelligence to justify the invasion of Iraq. A
subsequent investigation by the Pentagon's Inspector General found
the
OSP's work produced "conclusions that were not fully supported by the
available intelligence."


10. John Bolton -- As Undersecretary of State, Bolton offered a
strong
voice in favor of invading Iraq and pushed for the U.S. to disengage
from the International Criminal Court and key international arms
control agreements. A recess appointment landed Bolton the job of
U.S.
ambassador to the United Nations, despite his stringent animosity
toward the world body. Today, he spends his time calling for war with
Iran.


11. John Yoo -- As a lawyer for the Justice Department's Office of
Legal Counsel, Yoo authored a series of legal memos giving military
interrogators authority to use torture and coercive techniques when
interviewing terrorist suspects. Yoo said that only those techniques
that inflict pain equivalent to "death, organ failure or permanent
damage resulting in a loss of significant body functions" constitute
torture. Last year, he refused to answer whether or not the president
could order a detainee to be buried alive.


12. Ari Fleischer -- Bush's first press secretary helped redefine the
role as that of liar-in-chief rather than informer of the public,
earning a reputation as "the world's most dishonest flack." Whereas
his successors sometimes looked uncomfortable lying, Fleischer was
having fun, spinning a cowed and gullible press corps through two
massive tax cuts and the initiation of a war undertaken on false
pretenses.


13. John Ashcroft -- In 2003, as Bush's first Attorney General,
Ashcroft approved waterboarding and other torture techniques on
detainees. Ashcroft's nomination was controversial, as he had a
history of opposing school desegregation. The chief architect of the
invasive Patriot Act, Ashcroft maintains to this day that Bush is
"among the most respectful of all leaders ever" of civil liberties.


14. Henry Paulson -- Even as the financial system was crashing down
around him, Treasury Secretary Paulson insisted for months that the
banking system was "safe and sound." Once he decided that the economy
needed saving, Paulson requested nearly unfettered authority to send
billions of taxpayer dollars to banks with no oversight.


15. L. Paul Bremer -- This Presidential Medal of Freedom winner took
over the Coalition Provisional Authority in May 2003. Under his
mismanagement, the insurgency exploded in Iraq. Bremer claimed he had
all the troops he needed to secure the country, overestimated the
strength of the new U.S.-trained Iraqi army, disbanded the Iraqi army
leaving thousands of Iraqi soldiers with no income and no occupation,
and enacted a de-Baathification law that barred many experienced
Iraqis from government positions.


16. Bradley Schlozman -- As a recent DOJ Inspector General report
demonstrates, Schlozman was a central figure in Bush's politicization
of the Justice Department. Violating civil service laws, Schlozman
used political and ideological considerations to ensure that only
"right-thinking Americans" received jobs. He eventually lied to
Congress about his efforts.


17. J. Steven Griles -- A former energy lobbyist and no. 2 official
in
the Interior Department, Griles went to jail for lying to Congress
about illegal favors he did for corrupt lobbyist Jack Abramoff.
Griles
also abused his position "to unlock nearly every legal barrier to
exploitation" of our nation's oil and mineral reserves. Before his
conviction, Griles left the White House to become a lobbyist for
ConocoPhillips.


18. Condoleezza Rice -- As Bush's national security adviser, Rice was
another strong advocate for invading Iraq, once famously warning that
the U.S. should attack Iraq and not wait for solid proof of its WMD
because "we don't want the smoking gun to be a mushroom cloud." Rice
also ignored an urgent warning from the CIA before the Sept. 11,
2001,
terrorist attacks that a strike inside the U.S. was imminent.


19. Scooter Libby -- Cheney's former chief of staff was a key player
in the outing of CIA operative Valerie Plame as part of the Bush
administration' s quest to punish Plame's husband, former ambassador
Joseph Wilson, for publishing an op-ed debunking one of the White
House's main justifications for invading Iraq. Libby was ultimately
convicted of perjury and obstructing justice in a federal
investigation into Plame's outing but later had his 30-month prison
sentence commuted by Bush.


20. Monica Goodling -- Goodling was the most notorious graduate of
Pat
Robertson's Regent University during her tenure in the Justice
Department. As the White House liaison at the DOJ, she based the
department's hiring of candidates on their sexual preference, GOP
loyalty, and adherence to conservative ideology.


21. Alphonso Jackson -- As Housing and Urban Development Secretary,
Jackson let the U.S. housing market crumble while he was busy giving
lucrative contracts to his golfing buddies, retaliating against Bush
critics, and erecting giant photo homages to himself.


22. Michael Hayden -- As director of the National Security Agency,
Hayden ran Bush's warrantless wiretapping program and misled Congress
about the program's legality. After moving to the CIA, he dismissed
the destruction of evidence implicating the CIA in torture as "in
line
with the law."


23. Lurita Doan -- The former head of the General Services
Administration (GSA)who doled out a no-bid contract to a friend, Doan
famously hosted a meeting of White House political operatives where
she asked how GSA employees could "help 'our candidates' in the next
election." After the Office of Special Counsel called for her firing,
she was forced to resign at the request of the White House.


24. Gale Norton -- A former industry lobbyist and Bush's first
Secretary of the Interior, Norton pushed a radical ideological agenda
"through regulatory rollbacks, suppression of science, preferential
treatment, and collusion with industry" -- including doctoring
scientific findings on the impacts of oil drilling on caribou. After
resigning under the cloud of ties to Jack Abramoff, she joined Shell
Oil.


25. Lester Crawford -- After promising to act on the morning-after
contraceptive pill during his confirmation hearings, the former FDA
Commissioner "indefinitely postponed nonprescription sales of
emergency contraception over the objections of staff scientists who
had declared the pill safe." Crawford resigned after just two months
on the job and later pleaded guilty "to charges that he hid his
ownership of stock in food and drug companies that his agency
regulated."


26. Harriet Miers -- Well-known for being Bush's failed Supreme Court
nominee, Miers also thought it was "important" to her as White House
Counsel that Rove protege Tim Griffin was installed as a U.S.
Attorney, making her a central figure in the U.S. Attorney scandal.
She is said to have called Bush "the most brilliant man she had ever
met."


27. Hans Von Spakovsky -- Originally a political appointee in the
Civil Rights Division of the Justice Department, Spakovsky "injected
partisan political factors into decision-making" and used every
opportunity "to make it difficult for voters -- poor, minority and
Democratic -- to go to the polls." In 2008, Spakovsky withdrew his
name from consideration for the FEC, following months of opposition
from lawmakers and civil rights groups.


28. Tommy Franks -- As head of U.S. Central Command from 2000 to
2003,
Franks oversaw Osama bin Laden's great escape from Afghanistan, gave
orders for the stabilization of Iraq via PowerPoint, assumed that the
U.S. would draw down to 25,000 troops by the end of 2004, and had
American soldiers stand idly by as chaos and lawlessness took hold
after the invasion.


29. Thomas Scully -- As chief administrator for the Center for
Medicare and Medicaid Services, Scully was the White House's head
negotiator on the Medicare prescription drug bill. Scully threatened
to fire chief actuary Richard Foster if he revealed that Bush's
Medicare Part D legislation "would cost 25% to 50% more than the Bush
administration' s public estimates."


30. Julie MacDonald -- A top Interior Department appointee, MacDonald
"interjected herself personally and profoundly" and "tainted nearly
every decision made on the protection of endangered species" over a
five-year period, intimidating the staff with "abrupt and abrasive,
if
not abusive" tactics. MacDonald also leaked government documents to a
young acquaintance whom she met while playing "internet role-playing
games."


31. William Haynes -- As the former general counsel at the Defense
Department, he was part of a five-person team of high-level
administration lawyers, dubbed the "War Council," that tossed the
Geneva Conventions aside and hatched out the legal framework for
torture in secret meetings.


32. David Safavian -- Safavian was (twice) tried and convicted for
his
role in the jack Abramoff scandal. Safavian was found guilty of
"lying
and obstructing justice" in an attempt to cover-up "his many efforts
to assist Abramoff in acquiring two properties controlled by the
GSA."


33. James Connaughton -- As chairman of the White House Council of
Environmental Quality, Connaughton wrote EPA press releases
downplaying the danger of the air quality in lower Manhattan
following
9/11. "A former lobbyist for utilities, mining, chemical, and other
industrial polluters," Connaughton insisted "there's a lot of
disagreement" about humans' impact on global warming, and he touted a
bogus study purporting to show that the 20th century was not
unusually
warm.


34. William Luti -- A former Navy officer and Cheney aide, Luti was
dispatched to the Pentagon in 2001 to work underneath Feith to find
"evidence" to support his boss's belief in conspiracy theories
linking
Saddam to al Qaeda. Luti was an integral component of Cheney's
campaign to pressure intelligence professionals to conform their
judgments to administration policy rather than reality.


35. Susan Orr -- As Assistant Deputy Secretary for Population
Affairs,
this former Family Research Council official oversaw funding for the
only federal program that provided contraceptive services to low-
income Americans. Orr cheered Bush's anti-contraception record,
saying, "Fertility is not a disease. It's not a medical necessity
that
you have [contraception]."


36. Christopher Cox -- Under Chairman Cox, the Securities and
Exchange
Commission censored internal reports showing that it ignored critical
signs pointing to Wall Street's meltdown. Cox's SEC also failed to
detect Bernie Madoff's $50 billion Ponzi scheme, despite a decade of
warnings.


37. Elliott Abrams -- An Iran-Contra convict pardoned by Bush 41,
Abrams was named by Bush 43 as the Special Assistant to the President
and Senior Director for Democracy, Human Rights, and International
Operations. As a founding Project for a New American Century
signatory
and a staunchly pro-Israel neoconservative, Abrams supported
expanding
Israel's 2006 bombing of Lebanon into Syria and advocated a Fatah
coup
after Hamas won the February 2006 Palestinian elections.


38. Philip Cooney -- A former oil lobbyist who served as chief of
staff of the White House Council on Environmental Quality, Cooney
doctored climate reports to "soften" words and phrases linking
greenhouse gas emissions to global warming. After his political
interference was revealed, Cooney left the White House to become a
lobbyist for Exxon.


39. Colin Powell -- Though Bush called him "an American hero" when he
appointed him to be the first African-American Secretary of State,
Powell placed an ugly "blot" on his record when he pushed the Bush
administration' s faulty case for the Iraq war in a speech to the
U.N.
on Feb.5, 2003, using inaccurate information. Liberal hawks and the
media rallied around Powell's false case, calling it the "winning
hand" for war.


40. Elaine Chao -- The Labor Secretary made it through all eight
years
of the Bush administration, driving morale at the Labor Department so
low that staffers threw a "good-riddance party" to cheer her
departure. She leaves behind a "deeply troubled department" that
"spent eight years attacking workers' rights, strong workplace health
and safety rules, and unions while they carried the water for Big
Business."


41. Julie Myers -- After being hired as head of Immigration and
Customs Enforcement based on little more than her personal
connections, Myers made herself famous by awarding "Most Original
Costume" to an employee who dressed up in blackface and a prison
costume for Halloween. She was also heavily criticized for conducting
politically- motivated immigration raids.


42. Wade Horn -- As Assistant Secretary for Community Initiatives at
the Department of Health and Human Services, Horn funneled millions
of
tax-payer dollars into right-wing abstinence-only programs. Shortly
before he resigned, it was revealed that he had given nearly $1
million "to the National Fatherhood Initiative (NFI), where he was
the
president for at least three years until joining the Bush
administration in 2001."


43. George Deutsch -- As a young, inexperienced press officer for
NASA, Deutsch "told public affairs workers to limit reporters' access
to a top climate scientist and told a Web designer to add the word
'theory' at every mention of the Big Bang." He resigned in 2006 after
it was discovered he had lied on his resume, falsely claiming that he
had a journalism degree from Texas A&M.


Dishonorable Mentions: Bush appointees who didn't quite make the list
included a child pornography aficionado1, a patron of hookers2, a
shoplifter3, a mail fraudster4, an operator of an illegal horse
gambling ring5, and a CIA official who took bribes in the form of
prostitutes6.


1 Brian Doyle (http://www.talkleft.com/story/2006/04/08/885/23545 )
2 Randall Tobias (http://thinkprogress.org/2007/04/28/tobias-
prostitution/ )
3 Claude Allen, noted social conservative (http://www.slate.com/id/
2137895/ )
4 Bernard Kerik (http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2006/06/30/national/
main1769127.shtml )
5 Kenneth Tomlinson (http://www.nytimes.com/2006/08/30/washington/
30broadcast.html
ex=1314590400&en=194dd8e78d3d1467&ei=5090&partner=rssuserland&emc=rss )
6 Kyle (“Dusty”) Foggo (http://thinkprogress.org/2008/05/21/former-
cia-
official-indicted-for-accepting-bribes-of-sexual-companionship/ )


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