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Tomgram: Failing Upward, Bush-style

[Note to Tomdispatch readers: Three weeks ago, Nick Turse wrote a dispatch, The Fallen Legion, Casualties of the Bush Administration, about government officials who resigned or retired in protest, or were forced over a cliff by this administration. It was, in essence, a proposal for a Wall of Honor. At the time, we realized that it should be accompanied by a Wall of Shame. This, then, is the first of two linked pieces that attempt to apportion a little of the shame and honor. Look for Nick Turse's accompanying piece tomorrow.]


Bush's Wall of Shame
By Tom Engelhardt

The motto of this administration might easily be: "failing upward." Of course, that's not hard when those leading the country into catastrophe are also making the appointments and bestowing the honors. Somewhere in this world of ours there should be at least one Wall of Shame (and perhaps an adjoining Wall of Cronyism) for an administration which has heaped favor, position, and honors on those who have blundered, lied, manipulated, and broken the law (not to say, cracked open the Constitution and the republic). Here is just a sampling of the band of culprits who might appear on such a wall and but a few of the things for which they might be held accountable:

Honored for Catastrophe

Former CIA Director George ("slam dunk") Tenet, who oversaw an "intelligence" program of lies, misinformation, abductions, torture, the disappearing of prisoners, and the setting up of a mini-gulag of private prisons from Thailand to Eastern Europe, awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom as his tenure at the Agency ended.

Former Coalition Provisional Authority head L. Paul (I never saw an army I didn't want to disband) Bremer III, under whose leadership in Baghdad the American occupation mis- and displaced more money than is humanly imaginable, and under whose leadership Iraq descended into chaos, awarded the Medal of Freedom.

Former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Richard ("Guantanamo is a model facility") Myers, who oversaw the Iraq War and whose claim to fame may have been that he called Dan Rather of CBS to try to suppress the first "60 Minutes II" report on Abu Ghraib, awarded the Medal of Freedom.

Click here to read more of this dispatch.


TomDispatch.com

posted by Annamarie at 1:32 AM