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20 More Forgotten Bush Scandals
J. Scott Applewhite / AP Photo
By popular demand, The Daily Beast presents a sequel to its compilation of Bush administration improprieties. New scandals include: military coups, Cheney “loyalty oaths,” and a campaign plane that didn’t fly. For more on Bush, read The Beast's Farewell Chronicles.
The hardest part about compiling The Daily Beast's recent list of “20 Forgotten Bush Scandals” was narrowing it down to 20. You can't walk down the street without tripping on one of these things. Thus, we present 20 more scandals that we unearthed under a mound of shredded files and lost WMDs.
The Environmental President
1. The Bush EPA decided in 2002 that carbon emissions are not pollution, buying into the car lobby's perverse argument that curbing CO2 is anti-tree and anti-human. "Why would you regulate a pollutant that is an inert gas that is vital to plant photosynthesis and that people exhale when they breathe?" a spokesman for the Alliance of Automobile Manufacturers said at the time.
2. In 2007, the Bush team successfully demanded that the EPA weaken air quality standards to allow more smog in wildlife, farmlands, and parks.
3. In 2001, the EPA attempted to loosen restrictions on arsenic levels in drinking water. “I think we could have handled the environmental issue a little better,” Bush conceded later that year.
4. The White House may have hit its lowest point when it pressured the EPA into encouraging New Yorkers to return to their homes, jobs, and schools despite tests showing that the air in Lower Manhattan contained dangerous levels of asbestos, lead, and other toxins. Thousands became sick and EPA head Christine Todd Whitman only narrowly dodged a lawsuit on appeal after a lower court ruled the cover-up “shocked the conscience.”
Consumer Regulations Are for Losers
5. The Consumer Product Safety Commission, which manages product recalls, became so underfunded that its employees began to quit in droves. According to its commissioner, “they have no confidence the agency will continue to exist—or will exist in any meaningful form."
6. The Occupational Safety and Health Administration issued 86 percent fewer rules or regulations than under President Clinton and put a director in charge who was literally asleep at his desk.
7. FCC head Michael Powell weakened media ownership laws to allow large conglomerates to greatly expand their reach, drawing the ire of media critics like Obama adviser Lawrence Lessig, who called for the FCC to be eliminated entirely.
John Talks Joe
Lloyd Grove is editor at large for The Daily Beast. He is also a frequent contributor to New York magazine and was a contributing editor for Condé Nast Portfolio. He wrote a gossip column for the New York Daily News from 2003 to 2006. Prior to that, he wrote the Reliable Source column for the Washington Post, where he spent 23 years covering politics, the media, and other subjects.
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Benjamin Sarlin is a reporter for The Daily Beast. He previously covered New York City politics for The New York Sun and has worked for talkingpointsmemo.com.
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Benjamin Sarlin is a reporter for The Daily Beast. He previously covered New York City politics for The New York Sun and has worked for talkingpointsmemo.com.
Samuel P. Jacobs is a staff reporter at The Daily Beast. He has also written for The Boston Globe, The New York Observer, and The New Republic Online.
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Benjamin Sarlin is a reporter for The Daily Beast. He previously covered New York City politics for The New York Sun and has worked for talkingpointsmemo.com.
Regarding point #4. You hit the nail right on the head. As a long time downtown Manhattan resident I will always regret that five million or so of us New Yorkers didn't get to spend the winter of 2001-2 living in a Federally operated tent city in rural Pennsylvania.
If only the Bush administration had been smart like you.
A great way to shame criminals is to out them. Using the specific name is better than "a spokesman for the Alliance of Automobile Manufacturers said at the time." and it's shorter too!
Bush/Cheney managed to suck the life blood out of this country. I guarantee you their personal portfolios grew by leaps and bounds (yes I know they "can't" manage them while in office, but they haven't been honest about anything, 100% positive they weren't in this case either), and their self talk borders on the insane. One can only be thankful we are rid of them.
In light of Bush's bland and insipid parting speech the other night, I think his 2000 campaign jet should've been dubbed "Disappointment," rather than "Accountability," since he professed to having plenty of the former, and none of the latter when he expounded on his legacy in that same speech.
Keep spreading the hate. One day you may be famous.
the biggest scandal is that the supreme court ruled in such a way as to put this man in office. he and dick cheney should be brought up on charges of crimes against humanity. the united states has lost more with this man that any other in the history of this country, except maybe nixon. we used to be looked up to and now we are reviled, in many cases deservedly, we keep prisoners off shore so they are not protected by our constitution, we torture people and invade countries whose politic or leaders offend us.
This has been the worst administration EVER! It will be our job to not let them rewrite what has happened. Not to be haters but so it will not happen again. I'm certain that at the right time an total investigation should take place on certain abuses like in Justice, EPA, CIA, Interior and with in the VPs office and even the presidents office. These people have no shame... Hecka of a JOB dubya!
Truth and hate are not the same.
Bush and Cheney will never accept responsibility for anything they have done wrong, they are both too arrogant and delusional.
So glad to see the back of both of them it's been a long time coming.
Right. It's all the hate spreading that is destroying America. Not the two wars.
Definitely the worst, most out-of-touch, most obtuse president in modern history. It's almost as if every decision he made was based on what would be *worse* for the nation. I'm sure that was not his motivation, but that has certainly been the outcome in so many instances. The man was definitely way out of his depth. Intellectually, he seems about as deep as a puddle of water after a rain. Sad, really. Especially sad for our nation, which has been practically brought to its knees not by Al Queda or any other terrorist nation, but by the terrible decisions, horrible partisanship, and awful mismanagement/leadership of Bush/Cheney.
Bush is out of office and you have to admit that many, many, many lies were told about him by Democrats and the press. You obviously believed them. Let your "Bush Derangement Hate Syndrome" have a rest. Those of us who try to be fair are sick of hearing about it.
These people weren't incompetent. They did to the government exactly what they intended-stop it from interfering with any business.
Katrina for example was a way to move out poor people to open up real estate development.
They don't care about the middle class or the poor.
PunkRockRepublican: So your position is that the government has a right (perhaps a duty) to actively lie to its citizens regarding a public health crisis of grave proportions because telling the truth would have been, in the minds of the deciders at least, less convenient. Will you be granting this same Machiavellian/Straussian blank check to Obama? I won't, and I campaigned for him.
And anyway, what the hell kind of "punk" cheers on deadly governernment lies? That's way more Britney Spears than Minor Threat.
There you go again, PunkRockRepublican.. you aren't too smart are you?
Apostleis: are you seriously suggesting that Bush caused Katrina?
Way to kick a sad and tired ball called Bush. What about Congress? Is anyone willing to discuss complete legislative failure over the last eight years?
The worst scandal is the DARPA project and the unauthorized testing of DOD software on random subjects.
W has the "Reverse Midas Touch." Everything he touches turns into something brown & smelly. The scandals in his administration are too numerous to list.
I still say the worst of all is the way Rove had him turn the US Dept. of Justice into a political appendage of the Republican Party. Only applicants with proven credentials as extreme conservatives could be hired; grossly unqualified ideologues were installed in place of qualified solid performers who did not share W's extremist philosophy. Perjury was committed repeatedly in the frantic cover-up: Gonzalez showed us that his loyalty to Bush trumped his responsibilities to the nation. Bolton & Miers defied subpoenas & should be indicted for contempt of Congress. And the mastermind, Rove, has yet to be held accountable for the worst effort to corrupt the DOJ in history.
Another front where W was more concerned with the political fate of the GOP than in obeying his oath of office is the outing of a CIA undercover agent in an effort to punish her husband for daring to speak the truth to the nation when W was telling lies (Iraq's WMD's) to defend an unjust war. Does anyone who isn't in a coma believe that Scooter Libby wasn't doing Cheney's bidding? Both of them belong in jail. The judge & jury sentenced Libby before Bush showed us what he meant in 2000 when he called himself a "compassionate conservative(an oxymoron if there ever was one)."
W has rightly earned the right to be regarded with contempt by any person with a functioning brain & a conscience. He is truly the worst president ever.
I'm really getting tired of this Republican group-think where criticism or truth = a hate crime. Do you want accountable government or not?
Are these sensitive conservatives expecting to be called 'hate-filled bigots' just for disagreeing with Obama's policies? By assuming everybody who doesn't like Bush is just a big meanie, they're just saying that's a perfectly acceptable way to (attempt to) silence critics.
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