Will the media will treat scandalous donations to Bush's library as a big story? No, our standards have changed in 8 years.

George Bush has made a mess of the world, and earned a reputation for lying about things like weapsons of mass destruction.

Bill Clinton made a mess of his sex life, and earned a reputation for lying about things like exactly where the line is drawn between playing around and intercourse. Also, there was a scandal about donations to his library.

I don't think that the questionable donations to Bush's library will become much of a scandal.

Somehow, the issue has faded in importance over the last eight years.


Chicago Tribune
Washington Bureau
"The Swamp"

Lobbyist: $200K gift to Bush library helps
The library rejects any discussion of money in exchange for any meetings
July 13, 2008

by Mark Silva

"Stephen Payne, a significant fundraiser for President Bush's election and reelection campaigns, certainly didn't know he was being videotaped when he suggested that he could arrange some meetings with Vice President Dick Cheney and others in the Bush administration with a big donation to the Bush presidential library.

"And Payne, a Houston-based lobbyist and longtime Bush-backer who has served as a volunteer travel-advance planner for White House trips abroad, later told the Sunday Times of London, which today reported on the videotaped meeting between Payne and a Kazakh exile in London purportedly seeking some high-level contact with the Bush administration for a friend back home, that he certainly intended no 'quid pro quo.''"

Dick Cheney hides health effects of climate change

We knew his office was involved in hiding the truth about Iraq. It turns out Cheney doesn't want Americans to know about climate change, either.

Cheney's Office Pushed Purge Of Climate Change Testimony
By SIOBHAN HUGHES
July 8, 2008

WASHINGTON -- U.S. Vice President Dick Cheney's office was behind a push to censor congressional testimony that global warming poses a danger to the public, a former Environmental Protection Agency official told Congress.

The director of the Centers for Disease Control testified to a U.S. Senate panel last year about the public health effects of climate change in testimony that was heavily edited by the White House's Office of Management and Budget. Until now, Mr. Cheney's office hadn't been publicly linked to the efforts to keep information about climate change out of the public eye.

"The Council on Environmental Quality and the Office of the Vice President were seeking deletions to the CDC testimony," Jason Burnett, formerly an EPA associate deputy administrator, wrote in a letter dated July 6...