Bush-Cheney administration/corruption

Overview

This page is about corruption in the 2000-2007 US Presidential administration of George W. Bush.

Specifics

• Bush's elevation of presidential power: Bush seems to be trying to completely remove the restraints on presidential power.
• Bush's lies: the man has lied repeatedly, on record, with no apology or apparent remorse; he also makes promises and then quietly contradicts them with subsequent actions
• Bush's unapologetic use of torture
• Bush has "consistently advanced policies contradictory to his professed values" (Is George W. Bush a Conservative? by William Frey, M. D.)
• The Bush administration's consistent overlooking of facts which contradict the picture they want to paint:
  • It seems likely that people at the top level knew, or should have guessed from the evidence available, that the Yellowcake documents were inaccurate; see Yellowcake forgery
  • If Bush honestly believed that Saddam Hussein had WMDs, he was overlooking a lot of reports from his lower-level advisors
• Showed classified map of planned Iraq invasion, marked with a classification meaning that it wasn't to be shown to non-US officials, to Prince Bandar of Saudi Arabia on 2003-01-11 – two days before then-Secretary of State Colin Powell was informed of the plans.[1]

Possible Goals

Bush's goals seem consistent with the idea of converting the United States into a religious (Christian fundamentalist-evangelical) kleptocracy, with the president as a religious leader ("God is in the White House") with absolute power much as in the Nehemiah Scudder scenario (written in 1940 and set in 2016). It is not clear whether he is aware that his actions fit into this pattern or if he is largely being manipulated by others, but it seems quite unlikely that the pattern could have emerged by sheer chance. If it is not deliberate, then his actions at least imply a significant level of incompetence and disregard for the democratic process.

News

• 2006-09-17 Ties to GOP Trumped Know-How Among Staff Sent to Rebuild Iraq by Rajiv Chandrasekaran, Washington Post Staff Writer
• 2006-09-15 Rumsfeld's Fake News Flop in Iraq: the US government has recently spent upwards of $50 million on pro-US/military propaganda in Iraq, violating a basic democratic principle while supposedly in the process of trying to build a democratic society. Rumsfeld's response, when asked about this, indicated that he was far more bothered by the program having been discovered than by its existence; he also lied that it had been shut down when it had not, and did not apologize for the error when it was discovered.
  • 2005-12-02 Planting News in the Iraq Media
• 2005-08-18 Bush promotes corrupt military leadership: Bush did, in fact, appoint Michael Wynne to be Secretary of the Air Force three months later
• 2005-03-13 Under Bush, a New Age of Prepackaged Television News by David Barstow and Robin Stein, The New York Times