43

Think Progress has come up with a clever conceit for this time of retrospectives: a list called "The Top 43 Appointees Who Helped Make Bush The Worst President Ever."

Roger Ailes (the trustworthy one) says Brownie doesn't belong as high on the list as he appears. I agree with this -- he was more a symptom than a cause. I suppose he's right, also, that Condoleezza Rice should be higher than Ari Fleischer, but I wouldn't want to push Mr. "Americans need to watch what they say" too far down the list -- he was the willing and eager mouthpiece for an Administration that tried to equate dissent with treason.

Colin Powell is way down on the list at number 39. I wonder how much forgiveness he bought himself in TP's mind with his prominent endorsement of Obama. I guess he bought a little from me with that, but I'll never stop thinking that if there was one person who could had a chance to stop the sell job of the invasion of Iraq, it was him. Instead of doing that dog and pony show at the UN, he could have said, "This Administration is offering you fertilizer. It has a powerful odor such that none may abide its smell."