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Undoing The Damage Done
Of all the unqualified political hacks that the Bush Administration has placed in government positions, Julie MacDonald, the former Deputy Assistant Secretary for Fish and Wildlife and Parks at the Interior Department, has always held a special place in my heart.
While in her position, where she was charged with overseeing policy decisions on endangered species and other wildlife, MacDonald did what she could to make industry lobbyists happy. If government scientists produced inconvenient data, she just changed it. And while she didn't trust scientists all that much, she had no problem sharing interior agency documents with an "online friend" she met "through internet role-playing games." She told the Interior Department's inspector general that she'd shared the documents because she felt "frustrated at times" and wanted "to have another set of eyes give an unfiltered opinion of them."
Unfortunately, the inspector general's report made life difficult for MacDonald. And rather than explain herself, she resigned before a scheduled Congressional hearing in May.
After her departure, the Department underwent a review of a number of her decisions at the request of House Natural Resources Committee Chairman Nick J. Rahall (D-WV). And today, the Department told Rahall that seven of the eight decisions the Department reviewed will be overturned.
Josh
Zachary
Another addition to the "Heckuva job" club.
November 27, 2007 5:51 PM | Reply | Permalink
All these tangled threads that are coming unraveled are interesting.
Unfortunately all those bogus reports and findings and decisions took time and money and resources to produce. Then when an IG comes in and has to unfuck it all, that takes more money.
Sheesh.
November 27, 2007 6:28 PM | Reply | Permalink
Where do they find these people? I mean really are there that many stupid inept psychophants running around?
November 27, 2007 6:29 PM | Reply | Permalink
JA--these folks are easy to find. Its the decent honest folk that are hard to find in politics.
nrglaw
November 27, 2007 7:06 PM | Reply | Permalink
Medal of Freedom #13,265
NEXT!
November 27, 2007 7:17 PM | Reply | Permalink
The Union of Concerned Scientists says there were 100 allegations of impropriety against MacDonald. This action deals with 7 of them. The agency started with 11 of them - about 10 percent.
November 27, 2007 8:57 PM | Reply | Permalink
Any bets her degree is from Liberty U? Another True Believer no doubt.
U
November 27, 2007 9:30 PM | Reply | Permalink
Paul, cheap and shallow though she is, Julie MacDonald pales in comparison to the all-time star in muckraker's dreams - Pink Sugar.
November 27, 2007 9:33 PM | Reply | Permalink
Whoever gets elected President will have to create a Department of Undo.
November 27, 2007 11:17 PM | Reply | Permalink
Some more: She interfered with an endangered species study because it had an impact on property that she owned. Best (Worst) of all, her on-line friend was twelve years old or there abouts.
November 27, 2007 11:32 PM | Reply | Permalink
Another instance of: "Those who believe government *is* the problem, produce bad government"
November 27, 2007 11:50 PM | Reply | Permalink
Another instance of: "Those who believe government *is* the problem, produce bad government"
November 27, 2007 11:50 PM | Reply | Permalink
This is just the beginning of what will be a tidal wave of rollbacks. We can only pray that's the case.
November 28, 2007 12:18 AM | Reply | Permalink
There needs to be a dual track for rollback of the Bush initiatives to get at both policies sold to the highest bidder and personnel selected on the basis of partisan leanings. Clearly MacDonald's tenure was marked by a host of the first sort of problems, but it is equally important to root out unqualified ideologues installed in the Federal bureaucracy. Liberty University graduates made up the largest segment of new Federal hires so it will take years to dig out rot created by the Bush team.
November 28, 2007 2:00 AM | Reply | Permalink
Salmo: Maybe we can borrow some "Rollback" signs from Walmart to hang in government offices on 1-20-09.
November 28, 2007 5:20 AM | Reply | Permalink
Steven Heimel @ November 27, 2007 8:57 PM,
Thank you for getting there first. The true magnitude of this crap needs to be highlighted
November 28, 2007 8:44 AM | Reply | Permalink
To what extent does the government need to be purged after Bush leaves office? Methinks any purge would have to be extensive or even total.
The amount of White House employees Liberty University has churned out is astounding. I'd expect political fingerpointing to come about and Republican outrage over so-called 'partisan' hirings and firings. I'll be happy with competent individuals not beholden to corporate interests with vigorous oversight, but can we even expect that?
November 28, 2007 9:05 AM | Reply | Permalink
I think I'll be even angrier if she did it in Second Life, as opposed to WoW, my reason being that Second Life just plain /sucks/.
What's this moron up to these days?
November 28, 2007 9:46 AM | Reply | Permalink
danger wrote on November 28, 2007 9:05 AM:
To what extent does the government need to be purged after Bush leaves office? Methinks any purge would have to be extensive or even total.
To what extent???
ONLY A COMPLETE AND THOROUGH SANITIZATION WILL DO. JUST LIKE WHAT THEY DO WHEN THERE IS A DANGEROUS OUTRBREAK!
First, place the infectious individuals in isolation (or jail)
Then burn all the curtains, the rugs and scrub the floors and walls with bleach and strip every corner of every office until all the parasites are eliminated. That's the only way to contain an epidemic of such proportions.
November 28, 2007 9:50 AM | Reply | Permalink
De-Bushification will take a lifetime. So let's get on with it!
November 28, 2007 10:16 AM | Reply | Permalink
All this talk of purges and de-Bushification makes me think that individual states have it more together than the Federal government. Most of them, anyhow. I think we've definitely passed that point in time where not only is the federal government useless, but can't even really be saved in it's current state.
November 28, 2007 10:45 AM | Reply | Permalink
danger wrote on November 28, 2007 10:45 AM:
All this talk of purges and de-Bushification makes me think that individual states have it more together than the Federal government. Most of them, anyhow. I think we've definitely passed that point in time where not only is the federal government useless, but can't even really be saved in it's current state.
You are right, danger! Instead of parting Iraq, maybe we should consider the partition of the US along ethnic/religious lines.
Just a suggestion:
The Evangelical Bible-quoting Christian fanatics in the South, the intellectuals and progressives in both coasts and the NASCAR dads/Joe 6-packs in the midwest.
We have plenty of politicians to please all of them so we can be a happy divided nation, as opposed to a bitterly divided one, as we are now.
November 28, 2007 11:56 AM | Reply | Permalink
I am curious just as to what those eight policies were/are. We know that those people are incompetent. But, are each of these bushies incompetent in a different field or are they, as has been alluded to, just an interchangeable basket group of ideologues? In any case which group of god's bounty has been trashed by this particular tool?
footsore
November 28, 2007 12:42 PM | Reply | Permalink
It is too easy just to say that Bush lackies are merely incompetent. On the contrary, they are competent in doing what the repuglican corporate-sponsored administration intends them to do.
January 16, 2008 2:13 PM | Reply | Permalink