Loyal Bushie O'Beirne Protests Obama Changes at the Pentagon
By Jon Perr Thursday Jan 01, 2009 4:30pm
10 days ago, the Obama transition team notified about 90 of the Pentagon's 250 Bush political appointees that their services would no longer be needed after Inauguration Day. But despite DoD spokesman Geoff Morrell's declaration that holdover Republican Defense Secretary Robert Gates was "absolutely satisfied" with way the transition was being handled, one loyal Bushie at the Pentagon was anything but. Jim O'Beirne - the same Jim O'Beirne who famously populated the Coalition Provisional Authority in Baghdad with Republican campaign hacks and Bush bath-water drinkers - is crying foul.
On Tuesday, O'Beirne emailed the Bush loyalists who had learned of their looming dismissals from Scott Gration, a senior official on Obama’s transition team. In his seething missive, O'Beirne, the outgoing special assistant to the secretary of defense for White House liaisons, accused Team Obama of playing politics. As The Hill reported:
In the email, O'Beirne tried to assure the soon-to-be displaced employees that the decisions were based on "policy change in the Obama administration" and not based on performance.
However, he said, if employees "harbor residual doubts" then they can "content yourself with the likelihood that it was your outstanding performance as a Bush appointee that drew the opposition's attention to you."
"In that regard, you may take justifiable satisfaction that you were among the first to be chosen," O'Beirne wrote.
Of course, when it comes to evaluating the qualifications of Bush appointees, Jim O'Beirne knows best.
As Rajiv Chandrasekaran detailed in his shocking 2006 account of the bungled American occupation of Iraq (Imperial Life in the Emerald City: Inside Iraq's Green Zone), O'Beirne was the gatekeeper on personnel assigned to Baghdad. And to be sure, the GOP loyalist and husband of crypto-conservative columnist Kate O'Beirne used the crudest of political litmus tests.
As the Washington Post reported in an excerpt from Chandrasekaran's book:
To pass muster with O'Beirne, a political appointee who screens prospective political appointees for Defense Department posts, applicants didn't need to be experts in the Middle East or in post-conflict reconstruction. What seemed most important was loyalty to the Bush administration.
O'Beirne's staff posed blunt questions to some candidates about domestic politics: Did you vote for George W. Bush in 2000? Do you support the way the president is fighting the war on terror? Two people who sought jobs with the U.S. occupation authority said they were even asked their views on Roe v. Wade.
Unsurprisingly, the staff of Paul Bremer's CPA in the Green Zone in Baghdad quickly resembled an after-hours cocktail party at the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC):
Many of those chosen by O'Beirne's office to work for the Coalition Provisional Authority, which ran Iraq's government from April 2003 to June 2004, lacked vital skills and experience. A 24-year-old who had never worked in finance -- but had applied for a White House job -- was sent to reopen Baghdad's stock exchange. The daughter of a prominent neoconservative commentator and a recent graduate from an evangelical university for home-schooled children were tapped to manage Iraq's $13 billion budget, even though they didn't have a background in accounting.
As more and more of O'Beirne's hires arrived in the Green Zone, the CPA's headquarters in Hussein's marble-walled former Republican Palace felt like a campaign war room. Bumper stickers and mouse pads praising President Bush were standard desk decorations. In addition to military uniforms and "Operation Iraqi Freedom" garb, "Bush-Cheney 2004" T-shirts were among the most common pieces of clothing.
"I'm not here for the Iraqis," one staffer noted to a reporter over lunch. "I'm here for George Bush."
The results were predictable - and disastrous. Bremer's calamitous dissolution of the Iraqi army was matched by a tragic and often comical crusade to privatize the Iraqi economy. It was almost inevitable that O'Beirne's neophyte Republican minions presided over the loss of tens of billions of American taxpayer dollars to corruption, fraud and mismanagement. As Frederick Smith, who served as the deputy director of the CPA's Washington office, put it:
"We didn't tap -- and it should have started from the White House on down -- just didn't tap the right people to do this job. It was a tough, tough job. Instead we got people who went out there because of their political leanings."
Fast forward to Tuesday and Jim O'Beirne is furious about the political leanings of the Obama administration soon to take over his Pentagon. Ironically, back in Baghdad, the Iraqi government of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki today took control of the Green Zone from the United States. That would the same Green Zone Jim O'Beirne helped create as the lasting monument to the cynicism, cronyism and corruption of George W. Bush and his Republican Party.
(This piece is crossposted at Perrspectives.)
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in half.
Disband the CIA.
you are in real life, Alice, but I just have to say I come here to learn and I have learned from and agreed with you on numerous occasions. Hope you are around for a long while.
Yes! cut the defense budget in half. Yes! disband the CIA.
The chances of either being carried out is,alas,never going to happen, but we can hope for "change".
I'll second that.
Let's take it to a vote.
Yea's?
That is the best idea I've seen in quite some time. What is their role anyway, besides the drug trafficking and basic global shit disturbing?
And not to the ballgame, either.
"intelligence" agencies are really necessary? It's ridiculous. FBI, Homeland Security, CIA, and now Obama proposes a militia of some sort on American soil. What is with this paranoia? Please tell me it isn't contagious!
Reminds me of Spy vs Spy in the old Mad Magazines.
Of course it is ridiculous.
...it's the Dept of "Homeland Security" (the equivalent of the Politburo in Russia) that should be given the axe.
The sooner,t he better.
Actually, the Department of Homeland Security is the equivalent of the Soviet Committee for State Security, the KGB. The Politburo was the ruling committee of the Supreme Soviet and to be named to the Politburo meant you had truly arrived.
Also abolish the Department of Homeland Security and the NSA.
If we really need it, start over.
The ONLY reason bush came up with this bullshit was to KILL off the Federal Employes UNION. Customs was not Union. INS was with 169,000 members. bush did one of his dick-tater laws and kicked the Federal Employes Union out, and said THEY had NO right to UNION RIGHTS.
I believe that Bush never wanted that department and he only consented to it when Lieberman was pushing a bill through to make it happen (this was when Lieberman was still thought of as a democrat) and Bush/Rove didn't want the dems getting credit for it so they made it their idea.
The CIA consists of one division that does intelligence collection and analysis and another that does covert operations. The analysts have some very smart people and I think we need to have that kind of capability. The Covert Ops guys are the cowboys who make a mess pretty much every where they go. Anyone interested in the CIA should read the book Legacy of Ashes, its a history of the CIA written by a fairly conservative guy but it really shows how virtually every covert operation has been a failure. Even the ones that succeed in the short term (e.g. Iran, Afghanistan) end up as long run disasters by virtue of the blowback and unintended consequences. For example, if the CIA had not overthrown democracy in Iran and installed the Shah there could be a progressive democracy there right now that would be our friend rather than our enemy.
Such as no new aircraft carriers or submarines. I just read "Chasing Ghosts" by Paul Reikoff (sp?) and I would recommend it. Its amazing to read how the grunts on the ground have to do so much on their own because of incompetence and under funding of basic nuts and bolts stuff in the army. From flash lights to GPS systems to walkie talkies to Body Armor and even to vehicles, they have to scrounge things "liberated" from the Iraqis or get people at home to send them stuff. Meanwhile we spend billions on things like missile defense that don't work and serve only to allienate potential allies.
Heckofa job, O'Beirne.....
Every time I think I've got a good idea of what we've done to the Iraqi people, something new comes out that makes me hang my head. Sending someone with no finance experience whatsoever to open the stock exchange of an entire country? No wonder they're starving! (and thanks to whoever posted the link to the Monsanto seed issue in the "Yet Another 'End of the World as We Know It' In Iraqi's Green Zone" thread.) Complaining about being bit in the butt for being a loyal Bushie? He's a mindless jerk that should have been the first up against the wall when the Revolution came.
I don't understand why ANYONE from the previous administration would be asked to stay on/join the Obama administration. Their track record is stunningly abysmal, they oversaw one disaster after another and most, if not all, had no qualifications other than being a Republican.
Amen to not keeping Bush's "political" appointees, first because of their horrendous track record. But secondly, every president ever elected can get rid of his/her predecessor's political appointees and put his/her own people in key positions. Where the HELL does O'Beirne get off, encouraging them to think those jobs ought to be permanent? If they didn't understand that their jobs were temporary, they're pretty stupid. And this?
I wish somebody would spit in his face and tell him that NONE of George Bush's appointees were worth 2 cents, that they were wimps to serve in his corrupt administration.
Most of them were too ignorant to realize that they were totally incompetent.
Obama was planning to get rid of every one of Bush's political appointees at the Department of Defense. This news is just a whiney reaction to the continuing action. It appears that Obama's having to clean house all over the place, with large numbers of ambassadorships and other positions that have been filled by Bush's unqualified cronies.
I'm glad to see it happen!
Bottom line. Texans have lower standards -- in EVERYTHING. They basically cannot compete with the standards of other states, especially those east and north of the Mississippi. I remember that while Bush was governor of Texas, the head honchos at IBM in Armonk, NY sent their people down to Austin to fire the lazy ass Texans working in IBM's non-producing Austin plant.
Unless and until this parasite can account for the missing (stolen) $13 billion, he and his halatosis ridden hag of a wife need to STFU.
Seriously.
Where do you think the money went. They put it in hidden accounts because the day would come when they were all going to be looking for a job. They new after bushs term there were going to be very few jobs left in America.
that says if your spouse is dealing with the gov'mint, you do not go on the TV and pretend to be a journalist or commentator.
Bad form, don'tcha know.
"conflict of interest" but given the corrupt Beltway cultcha, cashing in IS an entitlement.
EVERY SINGLE BUSH APPOINTEE should be removed. If someone in this group is going to remain, they should be removed and re-vetted, and scrutinized for honesty and competence, things which have been grossly lacking in Bush's "administration".
And every one, judges included that Bush took out for political reasons should be reinstated.
"...the same Jim O'Beirne who famously populated the Coalition Provisional Authority in Baghdad with Republican campaign hacks and Bush bath-water drinkers - is crying foul."
Wouldn't that make them Baathists?
.. #:)
Big O' needs to be tried for treason, conspiracy to defraud, grand theft, and nearly thirty other crimes. Thankfully, he is one of the reasons America rejected the Repulsive Party in November. May he take is partisonism into retirement until we can send him to prison.
And all the rest of you hacks who turned the CPA and the Pentagon into a right-wing neocon den of incompetent ideologues. The "opposition" you refer to is the f'in PRESIDENT-ELECT. You and your ilk LOST the election, so show a little class (at last) and don't let the door hit you on the way out of government. And may you never return, you f'in criminal.
The hubris of these assholes makes me want to puke. Does this dick head think that Republicans would keep any Democrats if they were taking over from The Democrats. In fact how many of Clinton's people did the Bush retards keep when they came into office. This O'Beirne idiot is and asshole from way back.
Republican's memories are as short as my dick. Oh oh, I gave myself away.
if you claimed it had the dimensions of Republican hubris you'd be world famous Ron.
He'dbe Ron Jeremy.
"content yourself with the likelihood that it was your outstanding performance as a Bush appointee that drew the opposition's attention to you."
Exactly,
It was that unabashed Bush loyalty over America that could have drew attention. The aspect of "outstanding performance looms in the manner in which Al Qaida roams freely in Pakistan with the Pakistani blessing. No matter who had to die for an ideology dismissive of and ignorant of counter and alternative voices of reason. You are oustanding employees because you acted without full reason or independent thought. Bush's bidding is what was and still is the primary objective.
It is ashamed their job(s) came with an ideology vision test.!
Odd how neocons lack the irony gene.
It sure is. I don't get the outrage how they feel that they should stay as if the neon-nuts still think they are in power.
Now they have to look for real jobs where they have to be accountable.
Good thing that war criminal is gone. Maybe O'Bama will throw us a bone and let Dennis Kucinich pick his replacement. What O'Bama ought to do is tell them all they are being transferred to NATO headquarters, then turn them over to the world court when they get to Holland.
Something to be said for the Chinese way of dealing with malfeasance in high places ..
China dairy boss delayed reporting quality issues
BEIJING (AP) — A former dairy boss in China's scandal over tainted milk blamed for the deaths of at least six babies and illnesses of nearly 300,000 others has pleaded guilty to charges that could lead to the death penalty, state media reported.
That's gotta hurt.
would a mid-level bureaucrat get a death penelty for "losing" NINE BILLION DOLLARS-WORTH of Chinese Yuan currency while managing an illegal occupation of an innocent foreign country like Japan or Taiwan?
...let him protest. Who Cares??!! Throw all of 'em out - the sooner the better.
Don't need to waste any time verifying their job performance >> they worked for Bush and O'Bierne??...'nuff said.
That can't be good for their resumes.
How about, instead of just relieving these incompetent hacks of their politically appointed "jobs", we try them for the corruption & war crimes that they instigated? Let's start at the top (Cheney), but let's include O'Beirne & pals in the investigations.
by close of business on Janyary 20th...
that would be a good start.
Each President appointes people when he/she takes office. Now why would Obama keep Bush's appointees as Bush kicked out the Clinton appointees. Many more people will get the pink slip as they got their jobs because of favors. Obama will be going line by line over every thing Bush/Cheney have done over the pass 8 years. Cry me a river and get over it, these guys have had 8 years of stealing.
Thought this prick went out to pasture.
Glad to see he's attempting to keep the O'Beirne family unit afloat.
He's a douche, she's a cu*@y gasbag.
Reminds me of a Jackie Marting joke.... you know what, I'll stay above the fray.
"The process of removal continues."
Liet Kynes, Judge of the Change
I'd like to see the whole crew get a taste of the Obama Gom Jabbar.
For voting for Barack.
As Paul Simon once wrote: "One man's ceiling is another man's floor".
I want that job of handing out PINK SLIPS, no pay wanted.
It astonishes me that these war criminals think that they have standing to get pissy over losing their job when they ought properly to be in the dock.
1. Rich debutant private college-prep high school. (1980-1984)
2. Liberty University. (1985-1990)
2. Harvard Business School. (1990-1995)
3. Mid-level Enron Executive. (1995-2000)
4. Bush Administration Political Hack. (2001-2008)
Seriously, how would offer a jerk-off like this a job?
McDonalds or Walmart?
Maybe...
A real corporation that is trying to save itself from banrkruptcy?
Not a chance in hell...
That's all the qualifications that are necessary in Bush's little universe. If you want to see how things really work in Bush's social circle, read the following book on line:
http://www.tarpley.net/bushb.htm
uh, sadly...don't hate the playah, hate the muthaeffin' game!
Man, whenever I hear "Bush appointees" anymore, I immediately think poorly of them... That's what it's come to I guess...
I hate to think that way though, as it obviously means I've closed my mind off a bit... But jeez, they were just so horrible for the most part -
Anyone remember Nicolae Ceaucescu and his regime?
It was run much in the same way as O'Beirne ran his
in Iraq. Let's not forget all the preferential hirings
in Washington and elsewhere.
Bush once talked of "regime change". Now America
is experiencing it in the next few weeks.
All to the public's content; just like in Romania.
The part of Nicolae Ceaucescu's regime that sticks most in my mind is the very final moments of it: How he was imperiously informing the peasants who tried him that he didn't recognize their authority to try and convict him (remind you of anybody?). He was imperiously lecturing them as the firing squad pulled the triggers. Sic semper tyranis.
The Romanians were particularly glad Ceaucescu was executed in Tisighora, the Transylvanian birthplace of the Wallachian warlord/hero Voivode Vladislaus Dracula, whom Nicolae sometimes referred to himself as the new embodiment of.
Yeah, there was a kind of poetic justice to the whole thing.
Fine. 90 have been given their walking orders. what happens with and to the rest of the mob?
I suppose the 90 write books and the rest stay put.
Perhaps they know too much.
Plus ça change......................
The article reads as if O'beirne is staying, which would be an inexplicably idiotic move for the Obama team. I do hope that this corrupt douchebag is included on the list of those who are getting the boot.
I'm guessing Jim O'Beirne will be the very next one out the door. He has to know it's coming, the whining little sociopath.
Yeah, the guy is a clinically definable sociopath. He's like a cancer. Better for all if Obama excises him.
Like this?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QSy7FtAGlVI
is still being a political lackey not a public servant. Is this becoming a pattern now? Bush appointees (who got their jobs based only on their ability to totally turn off their brains for knee jerk rethug ideology) seem to think that they deserve their jobs forever because they believed they would be our permanent rethug overlords. We should take lengths of rope and whip them naked into the streets. The hacks, fuck them.
Wouldn't it be great to see all the huge, corrupt bureacracies cut down and replaced by agencies that could do something like, oh I don't know, put out fires in California or help rebuild flooded communities, maybe?
How's that post-hurricane Galveston cleanup coming, I wonder?
From "Think Progress" on Pearl Harbor Day: With only 44 days left in office, President Bush continues to “burrow” people into government positions that will continue long after President-elect Obama is sworn in. “All told, Mr. Bush has made roughly 30 personnel moves since the November election, some in nominations that will require Senate approval, and others in direct appointments that will last well into President-elect Barack Obama’s term and beyond.” The New York Times reports that on Tuesday of last week alone, Bush hired 18 people for administration jobs.
-------
The destruction of civil service?
This is a move to cement these unqualified hacks into positions that are supposed to be based on merit, aptitude and education without regard for political connections. Instead, Bush is moving O'Bierne's "Green Zone" to D.C. In addition to privatization of core government functions, this is another way for Bush to destroy competence in government.
If we are to continue as the United States of America I'd say it's imperative to rid OUR government of ALL bush appointees!!!
when the clintons tried to clean out the WH ticket office of people they may have thought would be reporting travel plans to the GOP, the GOP had their talk radio soapbox to turn it into a scandal- WH ticket office was being politicized. the right wing still cite that as one of many fabricated examples of clinton corruption that are established as 'fact' only because of the coordinated uncontested repetition of talk radio. similar will happen to obama- the whole blago connection/flap for eg., only because progressives ignore the talk radio monopoly.
You don't get rid of lice on a louse by louse basis.
. . . of the Bush Administration is that every last action, including the bits that look like whopping incompetency, misplaced loyalty and slavish adherence to pulled-out-of-someone's-ass ideology, was done to siphon money from the US Treasury to clients of the administration.
As is common with theories, I can't prove that this was their sole motivation. However, I've seen nothing to contradict it, and the hiring of unqualified Kool-Ade drinkers for the Green Zone is a prime example.
What do you think would have happened if O'Beirne had sent seasoned CPAs and engineers to Baghdad? All that "Oops! Gosh, we don't know where that cash went! . . . Receipt? We were supposed to get receipts? . . . What is this 'record system' of which you speak?" works very well for administrators trying to cover up for out-and-out theft.
"rising star" is Campbell Brown. Her husband is Dan Senor, one of the Bush flack/hacks this crime family was employing as a spokes-whore during the money laundering phase in Iraq, where pallets of 100$ bills went missing. Mr. Campbell Brown said that the money's disappearance was a result of not having modern accounting standards in Iraq, because it was supposedly, a 3rd-world like country. It wasn't true, but it served their PR purposes. Funny, but I never heard Campbell "No Bias, No Bull" Brown excoriate her husband over that blatant piece of bullshit. Well, that's the "liberal media" for you.
If their politics got them hired,
then their politics get them fired.
Why would there be a concerted effort to staff the CPA with a young bunch of ignorant Bushies? Because they'd be too stupid and incurious to ask questions while O'Bierne and his Republican senior operatives stole these billions to be used in the 2004 election. It takes a lot of money to game a Presidential election....the money went missing in early 2004. That money couldn't be traceable;that's why billions were sent on strapped pallets with oversight performed by an entity operating out of a house, with connections to the Cayman Islands.
The Republicans are scared shiteless about this heist getting exposed. This is why they'll obstruct any Democrat from gaining nomination for AG.
...and the hacks come floating to the surface like so much dried on excrement...
be a shame if Jim O'Beirne loses his job. His wife, Kate would lose her dental coverage.
Are they grooming each other?
O'beirne is willing to suck anything for his job. Send him to Iraq permanantly with his really stupid, ignorant pile of shit, wife.
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