a trail of broken careers in his wake

October 16, 2005 8:35 AM

Meet 42 casualties of the current Administration --they didn't die in Iraq, or New Orleans, but were beleaguered administrators, managers, and career civil servants who quit their posts in protest or were defamed, threatened, fired, forced out, demoted, or driven to retire by Bush administration strong-arming. From Bunny Greenhouse to Richard Clarke to General Zinni to lesser-known folks like James Zahn, who was prohibited on no fewer than 11 occasions from publicizing his research on the potential hazards to human health posed by airborne bacteria resulting from farm wastes. A very wide-ranging list, covering everything from Public Health to War to Terror and Torture to Education to...
posted by amberglow (28 comments total)

Good list, I am glad to see all these gathered in one place, and there are no doubt more. For instance, there were also some "in the tent" appointees who resigned in frustration when finding their views did not synch with the administration. Two that come to mind were Christie Todd Whitman, who resigned as head of the EPA - there was some speculation she was forced out - and John DeIulio, the first head of faith based initiatives who resigned after less than a year.
posted by madamjujujive at 9:23 AM on October 16, 2005

what amazes me, is that there is still anyone who can talk, with a straight face, about how this white house has restored honor and morality in washington.
not that there is anything criminal about firing people who don't agree with your views (it's just stupid), but what is criminal are the longterm implications and consequences to this country and the rest of the world.
I'd like to see this administration and it's sycophantic followers be permanently moved to the poorest neighbourhoods of this country (and just for good measure - let's give them the Katrina treatment: let's not tell them where their friends and families are being shipped off to), and because of their service to the nation they get to live off of the minimum welfare standard. Their previous assets are being contributed to balance the budget and pay for the war.
posted by threehundredandsixty at 9:27 AM on October 16, 2005

nice post, amberglow, by the way!
posted by threehundredandsixty at 9:28 AM on October 16, 2005

I hear the sound of Rove in the wings.
posted by Mr Bluesky at 9:30 AM on October 16, 2005

FUNNY, Mr. Bluesky!
sounded a bit like Cheney, though
posted by threehundredandsixty at 9:36 AM on October 16, 2005

There's something scary to me about the requirement for obedience to whatever the current party line is. I see them as like old Soviet Purges.
posted by amberglow at 9:43 AM on October 16, 2005

Heroes all. History will absolve them.
posted by stbalbach at 9:45 AM on October 16, 2005

Heroes all. History will absolve them.

Of course, that depends what kind of history we are left with.
posted by marxchivist at 9:49 AM on October 16, 2005

Nice find, amberglow -- very handy to have all this in one place.
posted by scody at 9:52 AM on October 16, 2005

Mary Matlin was on Don Imus' show the other day, bad-mouthing Joe Wilson as a response to questions about any illegality in the "outing" of Valerie Plame. It reminded me that that whole affair arose as a by-product of the Rovian campaign to smear Wilson. The level of hate and invective coming out of the woman's mouth was sickening.
posted by mmahaffie at 9:55 AM on October 16, 2005

PBS's Now did a story on Ms. Greenhouse this week. Link goes to a short bigoraphical summary, the video's not up yet. Presumably it will be here when it becomes available, which seems to take about a month. She came across as an an impeccably conscientous public servant in a climate where such people are not wanted.
posted by George_Spiggott at 9:56 AM on October 16, 2005

Heroes? Casualties? Can we please stop lowering the bar for these words?

This Cheney admin is evil enough without having to get all hyperbolic about it.
posted by srboisvert at 9:58 AM on October 16, 2005

thanks for the post, amberglow: outstanding.
and, I LOVE "Bunny Greenhouse". Bunny for President!
posted by matteo at 10:16 AM on October 16, 2005

Good list. Thanks, amberglow.
posted by homunculus at 10:54 AM on October 16, 2005

Mary Matlin was on Don Imus' show the other day, bad-mouthing Joe Wilson as a response to questions about any illegality in the 'outing' of Valerie Plame.

That's hardly surprising, since she was a member of the White House Iraq Group that Patrick Fitzgerald is investigating, is one of 21 administration officials involved in the leak case, and there are rumors she may be indicted in the case (but that seems unlikely).
posted by kirkaracha at 10:56 AM on October 16, 2005

It reminded me that that whole affair arose as a by-product of the Rovian campaign to smear Wilson.

A horse's head in every bed--as in Rove's memorably overheard We're going to fuck him! We're going to fuck him like he's never been fucked before!--that seems to have been the ambition in each attack of the administration's War Of Terror against its domestic opponents. And now it's biting them in the ass. Poetic justice, no ?
posted by y2karl at 11:01 AM on October 16, 2005

We're going to fuck him like he's never been fucked before!

sexual desire is an unstoppable force, karl -- that's why they've been so sloppy with this thing, they weren't thinking clearly. Wilson is indeed a very handsome man.
posted by matteo at 11:22 AM on October 16, 2005

Great post, amberglow. I'll be sending this around to the troops at work.

The one we keep talking about isn't on here, though, and that's Lawrence A. Greenfeld, who worked for our sister organization, the U.S. DOJ, specifically in the Bureau of Justice Statistics. This is in relation to an attempt to cover up unfavourable statistics that were part of a traffic stop report on racial profiling. You can read about it here.

The hubbub was that he was "demoted" but in reality he would have been fired were he not able to call upon policy that said as a former senior exec he had to be given work elsewhere. That would have been six months before full pension. He now does prison stats.
posted by dreamsign at 11:56 AM on October 16, 2005

send it to them, dreamsign--they're looking to make the list more complete.
posted by amberglow at 12:53 PM on October 16, 2005

Good link.
posted by DyRE at 2:10 PM on October 16, 2005

"He served as assistant to the secretary of defense for space policy and on the Pentagon Defense Science Board and the U.S. Intelligence Board under President Carter. Mr. Weiss was a foreign affairs officer and member of the National Security Council under Presidents Nixon, Ford and Reagan.

In 1976, he was awarded the French Legion of Honor award for his work in facilitating a joint venture between General Electric Co.'s aircraft engine division and the French jet engine company SNECMA that led to the creation of the best-selling jet engine in aviation history, the CFM56.

Mr. Weiss also was involved in numerous intelligence projects, and friends said there were many aspects of his career he could never discuss with them.

'He was wired into the intelligence community, and there were a lot of mystical secrets we weren't privy to,' said Harris Gilbert, a Nashville attorney who had been friends with Mr. Weiss since childhood. 'He was very interested in diplomatic strategy and was very, very opposed to the Iraq war. It was the first military action he ever opposed, but he believed we shouldn't go to war in the Middle East without knowing what we were getting into.'

Other friends said Mr. Weiss remained politically neutral despite spending much of his career in government service. 'He just devoted himself to academia and public service,' said Jane Eskind, a social activist here and former Tennessee political candidate, who also had been friends with Mr. Weiss since childhood.

'The thing about him that was most remarkable was that he remained a totally apolitical public servant in a very partisan environment.'

After graduating from Vanderbilt University, Mr. Weiss worked for a year at his family's upscale clothing store here, Gus Mayer.

He then went on to earn a master's degree in business administration from Harvard University and a doctorate in economics from New York University.

During his career in government service, Mr. Weiss won the Intelligence Medal of Merit, the Exceptional Service Medal from NASA and the Cipher Medal from the National Security Agency. He published several papers on the intelligence and engineering projects he worked on after information about the projects was declassified.

Survivors include Lillian Weiss, his 100-year-old aunt from New York City, and several cousins.

A funeral for Mr. Weiss will be held at 1 p.m. today at the Frank E. Campbell Funeral Home in New York City. He will be buried at a family cemetery plot in Brooklyn."

He was "dropped"(IMHO) from the roof at the Watergate, in the run up to the war. He had been teaching, and was engaged in his work with foreign policy students.
posted by hortense at 2:28 PM on October 16, 2005

hortense, you reminded me of these 2 these puzzling deaths (both fixers and lobbyists/operatives)--Edward von Kloberg, and R. Gregory Stevens.
posted by amberglow at 2:52 PM on October 16, 2005

Kloberg's was puzzling? He was a nut who jumped off a building after getting his heart broken. Suicide is awful, but not always unexpected.
posted by bardic at 3:32 PM on October 16, 2005

Oh yeah, lets not forget John and David.
We may be needing some titanium foil this evening, thank you for this post.
posted by hortense at 7:20 PM on October 16, 2005

the one that struck me most, not sure if he's on there, was the foreign service guy (serving in Italy???) who publically resigned jut before we went into Iraq. That was impressive; I was just spouting off on usenet at the time wrt how bad it was going to turn out but this guy put his money where his mouth was.
posted by Heywood Mogroot at 8:51 PM on October 16, 2005

send it to them

Done!
posted by dreamsign at 9:18 PM on October 16, 2005

He was a nut who jumped off a building after getting his heart broken.
where does it say Kloberg had his heart broken? where does that come from?
posted by amberglow at 9:43 PM on October 16, 2005

There's another one that is not on the list in the article:
Marlene Braun, the late manager of Carrizo Plain National Monument, in California.
posted by the Real Dan at 11:35 PM on October 16, 2005