Schadenfreude alert!

Ann Coulter edition.

ever wonder why Philip Pullman's baby killing villain was named Mrs. Coulter?

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No rep left unturned

Further evidence that no one's reputation survives the touch of the Bush administration: the Department of the Interior. I assume most of you are aware of the charges leveled at employees there, of the bribes and sex involved. Here is an editorial from the NY Times about it today. Not entirely an unbiased source, but the facts in it are backed up by news stories I have read elsewhere.

In three extraordinary reports delivered to Congress this week, Mr. Devaney [the Dept Inspector General] found that officials at the Minerals Management Service — the division responsible for granting offshore oil leases and collecting royalties — accepted gifts, steered contracts to favored clients and engaged in drugs and sex with oil company employees as part of what he described as a broader “culture of substance abuse and promiscuity.”

The Times conclusion is more politically charged, but it fits my thinking for some time about the Bush administration. After pointing out that the current Secretary of the Interior can take comfort from being exculpated by the report:

The White House can take no comfort at all. The people it brought to Washington to run the department had no interest in policing the oil, mining and agricultural interests they were sworn to regulate and every interest in promoting industry’s (and their own) good fortune. The most notorious of these was J. Steven Griles, a mining industry lobbyist who really ran the agency for four years and who later pleaded guilty to obstruction of justice in the Jack Abramoff scandal.

The Abramoff scandal just goes on and on. There still seem to be cases out there waiting for prosecution.

The "Decider" can't decide who decided

Or at least that seems to be the case for El Prez and the disbanding of the Iraqi army, now regarded as the single greatest blunder of the American occupation of Iraq. In an interview with biographer Robert Draper reported by the NYT Bush said “This group-think of ‘we all sat around and decided’ — there’s only one person that can decide, and that’s the president.” That's reassuring - it shows El Prez taking full responsibility for his policies, right or wrong. The "buck stops here" sort of attitude Americans like so much.

Then the effect is destroyed by this:

Mr. Bush acknowledged one major failing of the early occupation of Iraq when he said of disbanding the Saddam Hussein-era military, “The policy was to keep the army intact; didn’t happen.”

But when Mr. Draper pointed out that Mr. Bush’s former Iraq administrator, L. Paul Bremer III, had gone ahead and forced the army’s dissolution and then asked Mr. Bush how he reacted to that, Mr. Bush said, “Yeah, I can’t remember, I’m sure I said, ‘This is the policy, what happened?’ ”

Keeping the army intact was the policy, but someone decided on their own to break that policy, and Bush "can't remember?" I have to admit that I have become inured to tales of the Bush admin's incompetancy but this set me back on my heels. I don't know much about administration, but I am pretty sure that if any subordinate of mine directly contravened my stated policy I would have his head on a platter.

And I would remember it.

Dog and Cat fight at the National Review Online

Man, those guys over at NRO don't care WHO they offend. John Hood has posted on the site's blog that the historical ... no, I'd better let him have his say in his own words.

According to a number of historians and classicists, domesticated cats have probably been of greater practical value to humanity than domesticated dogs, due to their critical role in reducing the population of grain-eating and disease-carrying rodents. Medieval European foolishness linking cats, witchcraft, and the Devil led to eradication programs that may well have paved the way for deadly plagues. Karma.

Our weird little doggie is offended, but Mosby the cat seems fine with it.

As for the NRO folks, Jonah Goldberg and his dog(s) immediately posted this reply:

Mr. Hood - We are not amused. More to come tomorrow, when our passions will be less likely to get the better of us. Good evening, sir.

Well, ,the fur will fly now.


next post: Samurai Kitty