The George W. Bush Policy Institute—which would be the first think tank to be affiliated with a presidential library—will address issues that were priorities during Mr. Bush’s presidency, such as education, global health, political freedom and economic growth, and seek to promote advances by offering practical solutions, the former president said.

That is sort of like hiring John Wayne Gacy to babysit your children.

Bernard B. Kerik, a former New York police commissioner, pleaded guilty to eight felonies in a Federal District Court in White Plains on Thursday morning. Mr. Kerik, who will be sentenced in February, faces 27 to 33 months in prison.

Conservatives again demonstrate their impeccable judgement.

Ed Lazear was an economic adviser to the Bush administration, and now he thinks he can backseat drive the Obama team’s economic work? What’s he gonna say? “Here, let me drive this car into a ditch, I’m an expert“?

Up next: Donald Rumsfeld explains how to kill thousands of American soldiers.

In a karmic sense, Bush should be in chains in a prison somewhere, but going around as a sad sack motivational speaker may also be a fitting fate. I remember in 2001 Republicans blasting President Clinton for giving speeches to business groups and the like for big money. Somehow I think they’ll be silent about Bush working the rubber chicken circuit. My guess is Bush is able to demand far less money, but then unlike Clinton, Bush’s presidency failed.

But according to a report issued last week by the State Department’s inspector general, the complex is a monument to shoddy work and incompetent oversight. Walls and walkways are cracking, sewage gas flows back into residences, wiring is substandard, fire protection systems are faulty and other safety provisions are not up to contract specifications.

The report says that construction “was significantly deficient in multiple areas” and may not meet safety codes. It called on the State Department to seek $132 million in damages from the main construction company, First Kuwaiti General Trading and Contracting, which received $470 million for work on the embassy.

Oh, by the way, this all happened under the Bush administration.

Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Government (CREW) has just released a report tallying visits to the Bush White House by major Religious Right players. CREW filed a request for visitor records that coughed up the information.

According to a Sept. 4 CREW press release, the count looks something like this:

* For the period April 2001 through June 2006, Focus on the Family Founder and Chairman Emeritus James Dobson visited the White House 24 times; 10 of those visits were to President Bush.

* Andrea Sheldon Lafferty, executive director of the Traditional Values Coalition, made an astonishing 50 visits to the White House starting on Feb. 1, 2001, and continuing through March 16, 2008. Six of those visits were to President Bush.

* Wendy Wright, president of Concerned Women for America, made 43 visits to the White House between May 2001 and August 2006. Four of those visits were to President Bush.

* Gary Bauer, president of American Values, made 10 visits to the White House, starting with a Jan. 6, 2003, visit to Vice President Cheney and ending with a July 20, 2006, visit to President Bush.

* The late Jerry Falwell, of Jerry Falwell Ministries, made eight visits to the White House between May 2001 and September 2004. Three of those visits were to President Bush.

* Tony Perkins, president of Family Research Council, visited the White House 14 times between February 2001 and June 2006, including two visits to President Bush.

* The Rev. Louis Sheldon, chairman of the Traditional Values Coalition, made 19 visits to the White House between March 2001 and September 2006, including two visits to President Bush.

* The late Paul Weyrich, founder of Free Congress Foundation, made 17 visits to the White House between May 2001 and July 2005, including six visits to President Bush and one to Karl Rove.

* The Rev. Donald Wildmon, founder of the American Family Association, made three visits to the White House between July 2001 and March 2003, including one visit to President Bush.

Now Bush administration officials are wagging their fingers over the vetting of Van Jones? Really? The people who brought us Donald Rumsfeld, Alberto Gonzales, Harriet Miers, Michael Brown and not to mention Bush and Cheney themselves are going to lecture anyone on vetting?

Negro, please.

The Texas Advance Directives Act (1999), also known as the Texas Futile Care Law, describes certain provisions that are now Chapter 166 of the Texas Health & Safety Code. Controversy over these provisions mainly centers on Section 166.046, Subsection (e), which allows a health care facility to discontinue life-sustaining treatment against the wishes of the patient or guardian ten days after giving written notice if the continuation of life-sustaining treatment is considered medically inappropriate by the treating medical team.

The law was signed by George W. Bush, when he was governor of Texas. Death panels!

Bear in mind that by the time the terror alert controversy arose in 2004, we had already seen two tax cuts sold on massively, easily documented false pretenses; a war launched with constant innuendo about a Saddam-Osama link that was clearly false, and with claims about WMDs that were clearly shaky from the beginning and had proved to be entirely without foundation. We’d also seen vast, well-documented dishonesty and politicization on environmental policy. Oh, and Abu Ghraib was already public knowledge.

Given all that, it made complete sense to distrust anything the Bush administration said. That wasn’t reflexive, it was rational.

This is part of a larger conversation relating to a recent post from The Atlantic’s Marc Ambinder who made the laughable – though standard MSM – conclusion that even though we liberals were essentially right about the Bush administration’s criminality, we should have been ignored anyway.

The House Judiciary Committee has now released over 5400 pages of Bush administration and Republican Party emails (pdf) related to the firings. Several of these emails suggest coordination between Post reporter John Solomon and Bush administration officials on how to managee the Post’s coverage of the widening scandal.

In one email to a White House spokesperson, Solomon even appears to be suggesting what spin to apply in order to minimize damage from the revelations.

‘Thanks for any help you can give on this,’ Solomon wrote to Brian Roehrkasse on the morning of March 2, 2007. ‘I think some tick tock along thse lines will bring some perspective to how the process occurred. Of course, the White House counsel’s office had to sign off. Of course an administration in its last two years looks for some fresh blood to inject into jobs. Of course, DOJ’s analysis of prosecutors goes beyond performance evaluations to achievements or failures on policy issues like immigration. I think we can get this just right with your help.’

In case you wondered if this fits the pattern of John Solomon’s past activity, survey says yes.

The president of the United States, in a top-secret phone call to a major European ally, asked for French troops to join American soldiers in attacking Iraq as a mission from God.

Now out of office, Chirac recounts that the American leader appealed to their ‘common faith’ (Christianity) and told him: ‘Gog and Magog are at work in the Middle East…. The biblical prophecies are being fulfilled…. This confrontation is willed by God, who wants to use this conflict to erase his people’s enemies before a New Age begins.’

This bizarre episode occurred while the White House was assembling its ‘coalition of the willing’ to unleash the Iraq invasion. Chirac says he was boggled by Bush’s call and ‘wondered how someone could be so superficial and fanatical in their beliefs.’

In related news, Godzilla has been appointed to the task force to rebuild Tokyo.

Top Bush administration officials in 2002 debated testing the Constitution by sending American troops into the suburbs of Buffalo to arrest a group of men suspected of plotting with Al Qaeda, according to former administration officials.

Some of the advisers to President George W. Bush, including Vice President Dick Cheney, argued that a president had the power to use the military on domestic soil to sweep up the terrorism suspects, who came to be known as the Lackawanna Six, and declare them enemy combatants.

Mr. Bush ultimately decided against the proposal to use military force.

I thank goodness every day those jackals get further and further away from their time in power.

Sometimes it feels like the House Democrats are the only ones in Washington who remember the last eight years and what those people did to America.

House Democrats said yesterday that they expect to launch a formal investigation into a secret CIA program that was not disclosed to Congress for almost eight years, a probe that could entangle senior Bush administration officials who oversaw intelligence issues.

Democrats on the House intelligence committee said the inquiry would examine both the nature of the still-secret program and the decisions to keep congressional oversight committees in the dark about its existence.

Of course we need to haul their asses in front of congress. And if they committed crimes or lie about committing crimes, their butts need to be in jail.

The Central Intelligence Agency withheld information about a secret counterterrorism program from Congress for eight years on direct orders from former Vice President Dick Cheney, the agency’s director, Leon E. Panetta, has told the Senate and House intelligence committees, two people with direct knowledge of the matter said Saturday.

The report that Mr. Cheney was behind the decision to conceal the still-unidentified program from Congress deepened the mystery surrounding it, suggesting that the Bush administration had put a high priority on the program and its secrecy.

Mr. Panetta, who ended the program when he first learned of its existence from subordinates on June 23, briefed the two intelligence committees about it in separate closed sessions the next day.

People with brains knew this already, but here’s a government report validating us.

The 38-page unclassified version of the document reaches a cautious conclusion, stating that any use of the information collected under the surveillance program ’should be carefully monitored.’

…

Among other things, the report cites a Justice Department conclusion that ‘it was extraordinary and inappropriate that a single DOJ attorney, John Yoo, was relied upon to conduct the initial legal assessment’ of the surveillance program.

‘The lack of oversight and review of Yoo’s work … contributed to a legal analysis of the [program] that at a minimum was factually flawed,’ it says.

The report says Yoo largely circumvented both his boss, Assistant Attorney General Jay Bybee, and Attorney General John Ashcroft.

…

Most of the intelligence officials interviewed by the inspectors general had, according to the report, “difficulty citing specific instances where PSP reporting had directly contributed to counterterrorism successes.”

At some point, probably a long time from now, I bet we’ll find out that that this program was all about monitoring the conversations of people with a (D) after their names. Especially people like John Kerry.

And this is why President Obama is wrong when he so quickly wants to turn the page on the abuse of this country by George W. Bush and Co.

Central Intelligence Agency Director Leon E. Panetta has told lawmakers that CIA officials misled Congress ‘for a number of years’ since 2001, according to a letter released Wednesday from seven Democratic lawmakers.

The lawmakers say the CIA also withheld information about unspecified ’significant actions.’

The letter didn’t identify when Mr. Panetta made the statements or to what they referred.

‘This is similar to other deceptions of which we are aware from other recent periods,’ the letter continued.