Record Breaking -- Cabinet resignations -- exceeding expectations again

[radfringe]

Bush Close to Completing Cabinet With Reappointments (Update4)
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=10000103&sid=acvsCJ7jWoA8&refer=us

Dec. 9 (Bloomberg) -- President George W. Bush is close to completing his second-term Cabinet, reappointing four secretaries today. The group of 15 department heads will include a record nine new members.

Transportation Secretary Norman Y. Mineta, who served as commerce secretary to President Bill Clinton, will remain in the Bush administration along with Labor Secretary Elaine L. Chao, Interior Secretary Gail Norton and Housing Secretary Alphonso Jackson, Bush spokesman Scott McClellan said in Washington.

----snip----

``It's the biggest shakeup of a second term,'' said John Fortier, a political scientist at the Washington-based American Enterprise Institute, which advocates limited government. Bush is using the moves to ``put a stamp'' on various agencies, Fortier said. ``He's moved very close advisers out to departments where he wants to affect policy.''

----snip----

No president going back to Dwight Eisenhower, the first to be limited to two terms, replaced more Cabinet secretaries at the beginning of his second four years in office, said Martha Joynt Kumar, who studies presidential communications strategy at Towson University in Towson, Maryland. The record number is explained in part by the fact that Bush's Cabinet remained largely intact during his first term, she said. Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill stepped down in 2002.

----applying lipstick on the pig----

``This is the best launch of a second-term presidency I can remember,'' said Larry Sabato, who runs the University of Virginia's Center for Politics in Charlottesville, Virginia. ``It makes perfect sense to clear out the dead wood and reinvigorate the administration.''

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reminds me of the midnight massacre during the Nixon years when just about everyone was resigning over watergate mess....

Cabinet resignations are not unusual -- many resign for 'personal reasons' or because they refuse to participate in the chorus or have said something extremely embarassing ...

so what is the reason behind the mass exodus of bushies*? Is it all for personal reasons? or is it because they know what is coming down the road and are either anxious to save their own butts or refuse to participate in more crapola?

[imenja]

1. Yet Rumsfeld stays

the worst of all of them.

[Brundle_Fly]

2. yeah rummy and condi

what a record.

[unblock]

3. due mostly to the lack of earlier resignations

i think the bfee threatened most cabinet members, one way or another, into staying on until after the election. there were VERY few resignations during the first four years until after election day.

a lot of these resignations, are probably "pent up" resignations of people who wanted to quit one or two years ago but for some reason were talked out of it.

my guess is that shrub didn't want the politics and gossipping and tell-alls that follow resignations prior to the election.