by Last Night in Little Rock

As noted in the previous post, the Homeland Security Inspector General is looking into favoritism in letting no bid contracts to Bush Administration cronies. But, over at the Pentagon, the IG finds himself under investigation for allegedly slowing investigations of Bush appointees, as reported in today's LA Times.

by Last Night in Little Rock

Newsweek's Michael Isikoff catches Rep. Bob Ney (R-OH) in a lie about a junket, arranged by recently arrested Senior OMB Official David Safavian, also reported on Raw Story:

Newsweek's Michael Isikoff catches powerful Ohio congressman Bob Ney (R-OH) in another lie about a trip he took with recently arrested ex-White House official David Safavian. The deal? He said he made the trip to speak to Scottish parliamentarians. The trouble? There's no record of him ever giving a speech--and the parliament wasn't even in session.

RAW STORY revealed another apparent lie the congressman made about who paid for the trip earlier in the week: an email from Safavian indicates that Ney knew that fallen lobbyist Jack Abramoff was footing the bill for the junket.

by Last Night in Little Rock

Time tonight poses the interesting question, the title of its lead online story: "How Many More Mike Browns Are Out There?"

....then came Michael Brown. When President Bush's former point man on disasters was discovered to have more expertise about the rules of Arabian horse competition than about the management of a catastrophe, it was a reminder that the competence of government officials who are not household names can have a life or death impact. The Brown debacle has raised pointed questions about whether political connections, not qualifications, have helped an unusually high number of Bush appointees land vitally important jobs in the Federal Government.

by TChris

After Michael Brown proved that Arabian horse management isn't a helpful background for disaster management, some senators are asking whether other White House appointees to management positions are qualified to do their jobs. Susan Collins and Joe Lieberman wonder whether Julie Myers is fit to be assistant secretary of homeland security for immigration and customs enforcement, and Carl Levin questions whether technology lawyer Stewart Baker has the necessary experience to be assistant secretary of homeland security for policy.

At the same time, the Center for American Progress, a research institute for out-of-office Democratic policy experts, has questioned whether Andrew B. Maner is qualified for his position as chief financial officer of the Homeland Security Department, which has a budget of about $35 billion and more than 180,000 employees. Mr. Maner's main government experience before joining this administration was a job in the White House press office under the first President Bush.

Via John Cole , Crooks and Liars and Oliver Willis, Here are my results from the Politics Test:

You are a Social Liberal (83% permissive) and an... Economic Liberal (23% permissive) You are best described as a: Strong Democrat Link: The Politics Test on Ok Cupid

The Bush Administration continues its policy of handing out top Administration jobs based on cronyism. Did it not learn from Michael Brown? Apparently, not.

The latest: A 36 year old Administration lawyer named Julie Myers, who has no immigration experience, has been nominated to head up ICE, the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency, which is part of the Department of Homeland Security. Let's look at Ms. Myers' credentials - the last paragraph is key:

Last Night in Little Rock sent me this earlier today. It was written by someone named Harry Humphries in July, 2002 2004. Bottom line: It's always someone else's fault:

It's the liberals. It's the ACLU. It's Clinton. It's Monica. It's the "climate of permissiveness". It's France. It's the liberal media. It's Clinton's p*nis. It's Hillary. It's Gov. Dean. We never could have known they'd fly planes into buildings. "No actionable intelligence". They didn't tell us to do anything. O'Neill's lying. Clarke's lying. General Shinseki's lying. The Union of Concerned Scientists is lying. Our own weapons inspector David Kay's lying. Wilson's lying. John Dean's lying. Everyone's lying but us. We had to lie. We never lied.

The latest casualty of the Bush Administration is one with ties to indicted lobbyist Jack Abramoff:

A former Bush administration official was arrested Monday on charges he made false statements and obstructed a federal investigation into his dealings with lobbyist Jack Abramoff, according to court documents and government officials.

David Safavian, then-chief of staff of the General Services Administration and a former Abramoff lobbying associate, concealed from federal investigators that Abramoff was seeking to do business with GSA when Safavian joined him on a golf trip to Scotland in 2002, according to an FBI affidavit and the officials.

Atrios provides some important context.

President Bush's ratings are in free-fall. How low will they go?

Bush's rating for handling each of those issues dropped to the lowest of his presidency in a USA TODAY/CNN/Gallup Poll taken Friday through Sunday. (Related: Poll results)

Assessments of his personal qualities also fell: For the first time, a majority say he isn't a strong and decisive leader. Bush's overall approval rating is 40%, equaling a previous low. His overall disapproval rating is 58%, a new high.

Via Making Light:

From another book George didn’t read at Yale:

When resources are exhausted, then levies are made under pressure. When power and resources are exhausted, then the homeland is drained. The common people are deprived of seventy percent of their budget, while the government’s expenses for equipment amount to sixty percent of the budget.

— Sun Tzu
The Art of War

Appearing on ABC's This Week today, former President Bill Clinton took the offensive against George Bush:

Breaking with tradition under which US presidents mute criticisms of their successors, Clinton said the Bush administration had decided to invade Iraq "virtually alone and before UN inspections were completed, with no real urgency, no evidence that there were weapons of mass destruction." The Iraq war diverted US attention from the war on terrorism "and undermined the support that we might have had..."

Clinton also criticized Bush's response to Hurricane Katrina:

Via an unsourced news article at Huffington Post: Karl Rove spoke in Aspen this weekend at an off-the-record session:

Karl Rove, President Bush's top political advisor and deputy White House chief of staff, spoke at businessman Teddy Forstmann's annual off the record gathering in Aspen, Colorado this weekend. Here is what Rove had to say that the press wasn't allowed to report on.

On Katrina: The only mistake we made with Katrina was not overriding the local government...

On The Anti-War Movement: Cindy Sheehan is a clown. There is no real anti-war movement. No serious politician, with anything to do with anything, would show his face at an anti-war rally...

On Bush's Low Poll Numbers: We have not been good at explaining the success in Iraq. Polls go up and down and don't mean anything...