Litany of Bush administration failings

Source: "Goodlings Amok: A Common Thread in Bush's Failings," by Ruth Marcus, The Washington Post, July 30, 2008.

Ruth Marcus, in her op-ed piece takes on the Bush administration. Some excerpts:

This administration will leave office having trashed the place.....

My favorite sentence in the Goodling report sums up the hiring practices in the department's supposedly nonpartisan career ranks: "Tell Brad he can hire one more good American."

This was the response by Goodling, who served as Justice's liaison with the White House, to a request from Bradley Schlozman, the interim U.S. attorney in Kansas City, Mo., to bring aboard a new prosecutor. "Good American" is Goodling's code for "Republican." ,,,,

Most administrations find ways to keep the Goodlings under control and the grown-ups in charge. The trouble with this one is that it is riddled with Goodlings Gone Wild, incapable of or unwilling to distinguish between the proper pursuit of political aims and the responsible administration of government.

To take one other recent example, the NASA inspector general found last month that press officers in the space agency "reduced, marginalized, or mischaracterized" studies of global warming, toning down politically unwelcome conclusions. A news conference on global warming was postponed, according to a senior scientist, because the "administration does not want any negative environmental news before the [2004] election."......

President Bush put adherence to Republican theology -- taxes must be cut -- over prudent governing.

In February 2001, when the new president presented his first budget to Congress, he described the fiscal situation this way: "We have increased our budget at a responsible 4 percent, we have funded our priorities, we have paid down all the available debt, we have prepared for contingencies and we still have money left over."

That happy situation, he said, justified -- no, necessitated-- a tax cut: "The growing surplus exists because taxes are too high and government is charging more than it needs. The people of America have been overcharged, and on their behalf, I am here asking for a refund."......

Delivering the bad deficit news, Jim Nussle, director of the White House Office of Management and Budget, asserted that it was essential to keep the tax cuts in place to achieve balance. Huh? The Congressional Budget Office estimates that the total budgetary cost of the Bush tax cuts will be $245 billion next fiscal year -- half the hole the administration has helped dig.