Stop Presses: Powerline Stupid
Above: Paul Mirengoff radiating quantum stupetrons
December 03, 2006
Foner baloney[Eric Foner] argues that some of our bad presidents were corrupt, and goes on to assert that Bush’s corruption is even worse than that of Harding. If there were a board that considers historical malpractice, Foner would have to appear before it for that one. Bush’s administration has been nearly corruption free by historical standards. I may be missing someone, but the only high-profile administration offical I can think of who has faced criminal charges or had to resign in the face of scandal is Scooter Libby, who worked for the Vice President and who is not accused of corruption.
TPM Muckraker is still compiling their helpful list for Powerline, who’ll read it and then hop up and down with the list crumpled in their fist, going, “Drats! The treasonous left foiled us aga… What’s that? Did someone say there’s some new crap floating around about a Saddam/Al Qaeda connection?” And then there’ll be a decisive fixing of green eyeshades and spitting-on of hands, as Powerline cranks another citizen-journalist onionskin into their wise old Olivetti Lexicon 80.
Regardless, if we stop trying to teach them, they will have no chance for a better future. Dear Powerline, you must have been away from the desk when we heard about:
* Lester Crawford – Commissioner, FDA – resigned after only two months on the job. Pleaded guilty to conflict of interest and making false statements.
* Carl Truscott – Director, Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives Bureau – resigned. A report by the Justice Department’s Inspector General found that Truscott wasted tens of thousands of dollars on luxuries, wasted millions on whimsical management decisions and violated ethics rules by ordering employees to help his nephew with a high school video project.
* Joseph Schmitz – Inspector General, Defense – Resigned amid charges he personally intervened to protect top political appointees.
* Brian Doyle – Deputy Press Secretary, DHS – Resigned in wake of child sex scandal. Pleaded no contest to 32 criminal counts.
* Claude Allen – Assistant to the President for Domestic Policy- resigned, pleaded guilty to shoplifting from Target stores.
* David Safavian – former head of the Office of Federal Procurement Policy at the Office of Management and Budget – convicted of lying to ethics officials and Senate investigators about his ties to lobbyist Jack Abramoff.
* Steven Griles – Deputy Secretary at the Interior Department – resigned, currently under investigation by the Justice Department for his ties to Jack Abramoff.
* Susan Ralston – assistant, White House – resigned amidst revelations that she had accepted thousands of dollars in gifts from Abramoff without compensating him, counter to White House ethics rules.
* Dusty Foggo – Executive Director, CIA – stepped down following accusations of corruption in connection to the Duke Cunningham scandal. Under investigation.
* Larry Franklin – intelligence officer, Defense – resigned, pleaded guilty to passing secrets to Israel.
* Janet Rehnquist – Inspector General, Department of Health and Human Services – resigned in the face of allegations she blocked a politically dangerous probe on behalf of the Bush family.
* Roger Stillwell – desk officer, Interior Department – pleaded guilty to failing to report Redskins tickets and free dinners from Jack Abramoff.
* Ken Tomlinson, Board Chairman, Corporation for Public Broadcasting; member, Broadcasting Board of Governors – resigned at the release of an inspector general report concluding he had broken laws in spending CPB money to hire politically connected consultants to search for “bias” without consulting the board. At BBG, a separate investigation found he was running a “horse racing operation” out of his office, and continuing to hire politically-wired individuals to do “consulting” work for him. He’s still there.
* George Deutsch – press aide, NASA – resigned amid allegations he prevented the agency’s top climate scientist from speaking publicly about global warming.
* Richard Perle – Chairman, Defense Policy Board – resigned from Pentagon advisory panel amid conflict-of-interest charges.
* Frank Figueroa – senior DHS official, former head of anti-sex-crime Operation Predator – pleaded no contest to exposing himself to 16-year-old girl in Florida mall. Girl says he fondled himself for ten minutes. Figueroa forfeited his badge, gun, and access to databases; employment status pending internal DHS review.
* James Roche – secretary, U.S. Air Force – resigned in the wake of the Boeing tanker lease scandal, after it was revealed he had rather crudely pushed for Boeing to win a $23 billion contract.
* Darleen Druyun – senior contracting official, U.S. Air Force – pleaded guilty and sentenced to nine months in prison for her role in the Boeing tanker lease scandal.
* Marvin Sambur – top contracting executive, U.S. Air Force – Druyun’s boss, Sambur resigned in the wake of the scandal. Investigations cleared him of wrongdoing.
* Philip Cooney – chief of staff, White House Council on Environmental Quality – a former oil industry lawyer with no scientific expertise, Cooney resigned after it was revealed he had watered down reports on global warming.
Update: More keep rolling in.
The funny thing is that if you go to the Presidential Prayer Team website and check out that archives, you can see that they’d been praying for all of these people by name. Must not have worked.
Ah, but are they high-profile? (I.e., so high that even Powerline would have heard of the malfeaser.)
I’d imagine they’d heard of Richard Perle.
Ha! Any of the Powertools trying to take Eric Foner to task on matters historical is like one of them trying to school Prince on playing music. Or something. Eric Foner is one of our greatest living historians. I’m in a bit of awe over the man.
And there was actually someone in the Bush administration named “Dusty Foggo”?!? Why do government types always have the most peculiar names you’ve ever heard outside of a porn flick?
George Deutsch – press aide, NASA – resigned amid allegations he prevented the agency’s top climate scientist from speaking publicly about global warming.
Didn’t George Douche resign because he lied on his resume? It was because of the above mentioned scandal that his credentials came under scrutiny and it was discovered that he was not a graduate of Texas A & M.
Just like Dennis Prager and his “every congressman ever has taken his oath on the Bible”, he not only doesn’t know what he’s talking about, he doesn’t care. They just continue to pull stuff about of their ass. While typing away on his computer, “the only…official I can think of…” , he doesn’t even bother to take a few seconds to click on Google or Wikipedia. Add lazy to stupid.
No, no, they’ve redefined ‘top officials’ to mean those officials at the top spots.
Bush, Cheney, Rove. Not a single indictment.
Oh, yeah, you’ll point to a lot of well-founded allegations, Bush’s Harken stock deal, Rove’s election manipulations…. but the kerning is wrong, on all of them. Kerning, I tell you!
If Mirengoff has to make a correction, I’ll bet a pint of ice cream he tries the old ‘however, let’s look at Clinton!’ trick…
Shorter Mirengoff: “I better get this ‘least corrupt’ cut-and-paste job out there before the investigations start in January.”
Mirengoff’s next statement: “look how many Clinton officials were investigated…”
While we’re at it, how many Reagan officials were indicted?
If there were a board that considers historical malpractice, Foner would have to appear before it for that one.
Yes, I’m sure the Professional Division of the American Historical Association will take up this egregious violation of the Bush personality cult at their next meeting.
That Foner piece is a tour de force.
gale norton was also implicated in the abramoff scandal…
They might also check out all three installments of Nick Turse’s “Fallen Legion” (casualties of the Bush Administration) at TomDispatch:
1. http://www.tomdispatch.com/index.mhtml?pid=28817
2. http://www.tomdispatch.com/index.mhtml?pid=39653
3. http://www.tomdispatch.com/index.mhtml?pid=59061
I would like to appear before the historical malpractice board, and supply testimony.
Which would change historical malpractice history, thereby shattering the space-time continuum.
And maybe things would be different: Social Security would be solvent due to the monies that weren’t spent in Iraq.
There would be a national health care system.
And I would have a pony, and Jennifer Love-Hewitt would be my fiance.
Ya gotta dream.
Gavin M. said,
If Mirengoff has to make a correction, I’ll bet a pint of ice cream he tries the old ‘however, let’s look at Clinton!’ trick…
you’ll have to offer some long odds to get anyone to take that bet.
Halliburton, Halliburton, Halliburton.
Whatever happened to that 9 Billion dollars that went unaccounted for in Iraq?
http://edition.cnn.com/2005/WORLD/meast/01/30/iraq.audit/
Or that mass of FEMA trailers rotting in a field in Arkansas?
http://donklephant.com/2006/02/10/fema-trailers-still-in-arkansas/
powerline are just fucking liars. yes? liars liars liars liars. it’s good to use that word about them every time we mention them. did mirengoff know this? I will bet the fucking ben and jerry’s ice cream factory, fuck i’ll bet the entire hackysack collection of burlington vermont that he did. but he’s a fucking water-carrier for assholes, and he’s a meme-launcher for idiots.
Just to follow up on Left_Wing_Fox, we’ve have years of a Republican Congress that has has refused to perform it’s oversight duty.
So all that missing money in Iraq? Not investigated by the evil doers in the Administration, not investigated by the K-Street whores in congress.
So it’s surprising (and shocking) how long the shrub miscreant list actually.
And then there’s this. (Mikey, I promise it’s not a blind link to a horrible vlog, but it’s horrifying just the same.)
Didn’t George Douche resign because he lied on his resume?
Tablestakes for this administration.
And yes, Dennis Prager, after they all swore their oaths of office on the Bible. It’s like a get-out-of-jail-free card. Duh.
While we’re at it, how many Reagan officials were indicted?
It was well over two hundred. I remember a comedian did a bit where he said all their names on stage.
Bush’s administration has been nearly corruption free by historical standards.
Egad, sir, Mirengoff, you cad, you unmitigated bounder! I am lost for words in the face of such effrontery! Your barefaced gall, your… splutter… If you were a gentlemen, I would… Ah, the smelling salts. Thank you, nurse.
Bush’s administration has been nearly corruption free by historical standards
WAR IS PEACE
FREEDOM IS SLAVERY
IGNORANCE IS STRENGTH
LONG LIVE POWERLINE
LONG LIVE THE CONSERVATIVE CULTURAL REVOLUTION
Are you saying that the 3 star General’s knowledge of prewar intelligence on Iraq is inferior to yours?
Get real.
Are you saying that the 3 star General’s knowledge of prewar intelligence on Iraq is inferior to yours?
Get real.
After nearly four years of buying into wrong, bogus, made-up, and/or mistaken stories of ‘new evidence for Iraqi WMDs,’ you folks ought to have learned some humility.
And those guys were did in even with a chickenshit Congress. The entire GOP apparatus is corrupt and I get the feeling that will come out over the next couple of years.
They also forgot Tom Noe, Bush Pioneer.
And I don’t think it’s even necessary to count the upcoming International Court indictments against Gonzo, Condi, Dick, Rummy and President Samples.
C’mahn, youse guys. He said ‘high profile’. ‘HIGH profile’. That’s entirely subjective. He can get any results he wants out of that. And, you know, if you really press him, well, he can always say he didn’t MEAN corruption, he actually meant… um… well… dog blowing! Yeah! On the dog blowing scale, Bush hardly rates at all! Kennedy and Johnson and Ford were all having way more oral k9 sex than Dubya ever has! So there! And don’t even bring up Truman. I mean, we’ve all seen the photos.
I think my arse is bleeding again….
Wait, wait. To hell with Dusty Foggo and his pornarrific name — Presidential Prayer Team website? This exists? And no one told me?
I’m the Free Safety on the Presidential Prayer Team. I’m-a gonna pray yer ass into WEDENESDAY!!!
mikey
Re: Dusty Foggo
[Please understand that I am a copyeditor at heart, and therefor can’t set the following as it should be. Please read the following in ALL CAPs ]
Re: Dusty Foggo
What the Fuck part of “CIA Director Resigns Over Tax-Payer-Funded Gay Hookers” did the effing ‘journalists’ in our Media fail to understand?
OT, but….Iffy gotta hat tip from Greenwald. Ooooooh and to think we knew you when, Iffy!
What do you mean, when? When you were writing porn on driftglass’ comment threads, of course. Now you’re all respectable and shit.
Well, maybe not ALL respectable, since you’re still commenting here.
Congrats Iffy! He took your bait and ran with it. And it’s a beaut.
Mirengoff is also a fierce emitter of bogons.