This is Bad

And further evidence the Bush administration tried to turn the entire United States government into its political servant:

Witnesses have told congressional investigators that the chief of the General Services Administration and a deputy in Karl Rove's political affairs office at the White House joined in a videoconference earlier this year with top GSA political appointees, who discussed ways to help Republican candidates.

With GSA Administrator Lurita Alexis Doan and up to 40 regional administrators on hand, J. Scott Jennings, the White House's deputy director of political affairs, gave a PowerPoint presentation on Jan. 26 of polling data about the 2006 elections.

When Jennings concluded his presentation to the GSA political appointees, Doan allegedly asked them how they could "help 'our candidates' in the next elections," according to a March 6 letter to Doan from Rep. Henry A. Waxman (D-Calif.), chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee.

The committee will now investigate whether the remarks made during the videoconference, confirmed by "multiple sources" according to Waxman, "violated the Hatch Act, a federal law that restricts executive-branch employees from using their positions for political purposes."

Something I've noticed being increasingly expressed by people on both sides of the aisle is the thought that all administrations politicize the government. Rightwingers have long said it to justify what the Bushies are doing, like it's no big deal, but more and more leftwingers are now starting to say it with a sort of sigh of resignation, like what the Bushies are doing have wiped out all memory of previous administrations. It's simply not true that Bush administration attempts to turn every vein in every leaf on every twig on every branch of government into a political operation is typical of administrations of either party. There has been evidence that the Bush administration was, to be charitable, unusual in this regard for years, going back to engaging in paid propaganda and beyond.

We shouldn't lose sight of that, for a whole lot of reasons, not the least of which being that casual acceptance of or resignation to profound corruption in one administration makes its manifestation in subsequent administrations all the more likely.

We really need to still get angry and write our representatives about every single thing that happens like this, because "What do you expect?" will eventually bring us to a point where we genuinely can't expect anything else.

I know all about outrage fatigue, but dammit if one of my worst fears isn't that the legacy of the Bush administration will be making all kinds of bullshit acceptable by comparison, because we all got too tired to care anymore.