Bush Missteps Chronicled

On Davidcorn.com there is a story about all the missteps that took place during the W years.

Here's what he had to say.

From the Center on Public Integrity comes a report entitled Broken Government that lists 125--count-'em!--"systematic failures across the breadth of the federal government" that have marked (and marred) the eight-year tenure of (now-disappearing) President George W. Bush. From the press release:

Among the examples:

* a Food and Drug Administration unable to guarantee the safety of food or drugs
* a National Aeronautics and Space Administration inspector general who blocked multiple investigations
* a budget deficit that ballooned to $455 billion for fiscal year 2008, and could reach $1 trillion in fiscal year 2009
* an Environmental Protection Agency that ignored and underutilized its own office and task force on children's health
* a Securities and Exchange Commission that sat largely on the sidelines, allowing little-understood new financial instruments to undermine the pillars of the economy
* a Federal Labor Relations Board with neither a general counsel nor the quorum needed to handle hundreds of complaints regarding unfair labor practices
* a terrorist detention system based at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, whose legality has repeatedly been challenged by the courts

Many of the failures are rooted in recurring themes: agency appointees selected primarily for ideology and loyalty, rather than competence; agency heads who overruled staff experts and suppressed reports that did not coincide with administration philosophy; agency-industry collusion; a bedrock belief in the wisdom of deregulation; extensive private outsourcing of public functions; a general failure to exercise government's oversight responsibilities; and severely slashed budgets at understaffed agencies that often left them unable to execute basic administrative functions.

I know, I know. Most of this will not come as a surprise to anyone who has not been in a coma for the past eight years. The Government Accountability Office, as we reported recently at Mother Jones, has put together its own list. Chronicling the damage of the W years is an important job. And, alas, it won't be over any time soon.

***Truly amazing, I don't think my 8 year old nephew would have messed things up this bad.***