The New Republic offers its ranking of the 15 biggest hacks in the Bush administration ("Welcome to the Hackocracy"). It would be a highly amusing read if it weren't so sad.
Read a summary of the list below the jump, or click here for a link to the article (it's free but you might have to register).
Here are highlights from TNR's Bush hack rankings, from bad to worse:
15. Israel Hernandez: Assistant Secretary for Trade Promotion and Director General of the United States and Foreign Commercial Service, Department of Commerce (confirmation pending)
Bush calls him "Altoid Boy" because Hernandez served as W.'s travel aide in the 1990s and W. was impressed that he was "always there with the Altoids." He joined Bush's 2000 presidential campaign and later worked in the White House as Rove's assistant. He helped choreograph Bush's events and was once made part of the first lady's official delegation on a trip to Europe so that "he could keep an eye on Jenna." All of which, apparently, was good preparation for managing more than 1,800 employees in more than 80 countries.
14. Andrew Maner: Chief Financial Officer, Department of Homeland Security
In the first Bush administration, Maner helped plan presidential travel and served as a junior press aide. Later, he was spokesman and political fixer for the ex-president. After several private sector jobs in information technology and procurement and a brief stint in Customs, he now manages DHS's $40 billion budget despite is scant financial management experience. Hack note: this is the only Cabinet department CFO slot that doesn't require Senate confirmation.
13. Claire Buchan: Chief of Staff, Department of Commerce
Served as deputy press secretary at the White House, where she was often relegated to "baby-sitting reporters on long trips." But last spring she was promoted to help the Commerce secretary oversee a $6.3 billion budget and 38,000 employees. One White House reporter who worked closely with Buchan for five years called her "the most useless in a Bush universe of enforced uselessness. She took empty banality to a new low."
12. Paul Hoffman: Deputy Assistant Secretary for Fish and Wildlife and Parks, Department of the Interior
Hoffman catapulted from heading the Chamber of Commerce in tiny Cody, Wyoming (population 9,000) to helping run the National Park Service, thanks to spending four years in the 1980s working as the state director for then-Wyoming Rep. Dick Cheney. Hoffman is noted for, among other things, asking the U.N. World Heritage Committee to remove Yellowstone Park from its "In Danger List"; instructing the Grand Canyon's visitor centers to stock a creationist book that explained how God made the canyon 6,000 years ago; and proposing that park managers emphasize multiple uses for their parks - including snowmobiling, Jet-Skiing, grazing, drilling and mining.
11. Patrick Rhode: Acting Deputy Director Federal Emergency Management Agency
Most of us are already familiar with the hapless Rhode. He entered federal government in 2001 as deputy director of advance operations for the Bush White House, a job he had also held for Bush's 2000 campaign. But Rhode has covered disasters - as a TV anchor for local network affiliates in Alabama and Arkansas, where he developed "an acute interest in what responders do in times of crises."
10. Steven Law: Deputy Secretary, Department of Labor
In 1990, Law served as campaign manager for Kentucky Sen. Mitch McConnell's reelection race - a campaign that insinuated McConnell's Dem. opponent was both mentally ill and a drug addict. Law then served as McConnell's chief of staff and, six years later, when McConnell was chairman of the National Republican Senatorial Committee, he made Law the group's executive director. In 2001, newly appointed Labor Secretary Elaine Chao - who happens to be McConnell's wife - hired Law as her chief of staff, a stepping stone to his current position running a department with 17,000 employees and an annual budget of over $50 billion.
9. Hal Stratton: Chairman, Consumer Product Safety Commission
After co-chairing New Mexico Lawyers for Bush during the 2000 campaign, Stratton took the top job of deciding which of 15,000 types of consumer products pose a health risk and might need to be recalled - despite having no consumer protection experience (he initially had wanted a job in the Interior Dept. but "That didn't work out," he told the Albuquerque Journal). He's now known for rare public hearings, a paucity of new safety regulations, as well as regular (often industry-sponsored) travels to such destinations as China, Costa Rica, Belgium, Spain and Mexico.
8. Mark McKinnon: Member, Broadcasting Board of Governors (confirmation pending)
Called "M-Cat" by W., he's been nominated to fill one of the Dem slots on the board, which oversees Voice of America and other U.S. media beamed to the Middle East, despite his slim Democratic credentials. McKinnon's career highlights include overseeing media strategy for Bush's two presidential bids, where he masterminded a spot predicting that John Kerry would "Weaken [the] Fight Against Terrorists." In last year's campaign, his company, Maverick Media, accepted over $177 million in fees from Bush and the RNC.
7. Stewart Simonson: Assistant Secretary for Public Health and Emergency Preparedness, Department of Health and Human Services
Prior to joining HHS in 2001, Simonson's background was not in public health but public transit, as a top official at Amtrak. Before that, he was an adviser to then-Wisconsin Gov. Tommy Thompson, specializing in crime and prison policy. When Thompson became HHS secretary in 2001, he hired Simonson as a legal adviser and promoted him to his current post shortly before leaving the Department last year.
6. Hector Barreto: Administrator, Small Business Administration
Barreto went from running a 10-employee insurance & financial services company to the SBA's more than 3,000 employees, $600 million budget, and a portfolio of loans totaling $45 billion. Among Barreto's accomplishments: Last year, the SBA failed to notify Congress that it needed additional funding for its largest and most popular loan program and was forced to temporarily shutter it because it was out of money; The vast majority of the $5 billion in SBA loans set aside to help small businesses recover from 9/11 went to businesses not affected by the terrorist attacks; Out of 12,000 loan applications from small businesses affected by Hurricane Katrina, the SBA has so far approved only 76.
5. David Wilkins: American Ambassador to Canada
A former South Carolina legislator whose chief contribution to world affairs was raising $200,000 for W.'s 2004 campaign, Wilkins had only been to Canada once (Niagara Falls) prior to his nomination in April. He promptly escalated the two countries' dispute over softwood lumber by accusing Canadians of being overly emotional and by threatening an all-out trade war that would have affected multiple industries, from broadcasting to eggs. To demonstrate his diplomatic sensitivity, he opens his speeches with a jolly, "Bonjour, y'all!"
4. Jim Nicholson: Secretary, Department of Veterans Affairs
Nicholson chaired the RNC from 1997 to 2000, raising close to $380 million for the 2000 cycle. In Bush's first term, Nicholson was rewarded with the ambassadorship to the Holy See, and last Feb. he was named to head the VA despite having zero experience in veterans' advocacy. In June, he admitted that VA had underestimated the number of veterans who would be seeking medical treatment this year by nearly 80,000 because it had failed to take into account the surge in enrollment by veterans of the Afghanistan and Iraq conflicts. Rep. House Appropriations Committee Chair Jerry Lewis said VA's failure to identify the problem and notify Congress earlier "borders on stupidity."
3. Rear Admiral Cristina Beato: Acting Assistant Secretary for Health, Department of Health and Human Services
Beato's resume said she earned a master's of public health in occupational medicine from the University of Wisconsin (but the university doesn't even offer that degree). She claimed to be "one of the principal leaders who revolutionized medical education in American universities by implementing the Problem Based learning curriculum" (but the curriculum was developed while Beato was still a medical student). She listed "medical attaché" to the American Embassy in Turkey as a job she held in 1986 (but that position didn't exist until 1995). She also boasted that she had "established" the University of New Mexico's occupational health clinic (but the clinic existed before she was hired, and there was even another medical director before her).
2. John Pennington: Director, Region Ten, Federal Emergency Management Agency
A former state rep. who ran a coffee business with his wife in rural Washington, Pennington served as Cowlitz County co-chair of the Bush campaign in 2000. Despite no disaster relief experience, he was named to the FEMA post in 2001 at the urging of former Washington Rep. Jennifer Dunn, who had been the Bush campaign's state chair. Last month, The Seattle Times reported that, just before he was appointed to FEMA, Pennington received his bachelor's degree from an unaccredited California correspondence school that federal investigators later described as a "diploma mill."
1. Harriet Miers: White House Counsel, Nominee for Associate Justice of the Supreme Court
'nuff said.