Bush Interior Department Official to Endangered Species: $#% You!

January 20 can't come soon enough, but first let the crimes of the Bush administration be released and judged. Today's chopping block head is Julie MacDonald, a former high-ranking official in the Interior Department's Fish and Wildlife Service. According to a newly-released report from Interior Inspector General Earl Devaney, MacDonald successfully "tainted nearly every decision made on the protection of endangered species over five years" and even exceeded expectations by "exert[ing] improper political interference on many more rulings than previously thought." MacDonald's priority, according to the report, was not so much the well-being of hurting species, but rather a particular political agenda (hmm, perhaps we see a pattern?) that led her to push through a host of rulings axing greater protection for endangered species. Seven of them were (thankfully) reversed by the department, but Devaney's report found an additional 13 decisions that MacDonald skewed to fit her agenda, and two ...