>Referring to the defenders of the current administration in general. The administration itself seems quite capable of avoiding the hard facts.

Very well. Since I consider myself to be a defender of the current administration, allow me to present Harry S. Truman, someone whom I hold in very high regard.

Another ongoing domestic political problem was the perception of corruption among members of his administration: hundreds of his appointees were forced to resign in a series of financial scandals....His public opinion ratings were the lowest on record, but scholars today rank him among the top ten Presidents. (highlight is mine).

My point in all of this is not to excuse or condone corruption or waste in this current administration - far from it. Instead, I'm trying to illustrate that this is a problem that has plagued every administration and will continue to do so. Honey draws flies, money draws politicians. You, Perry, and everyone else that constantly disparage Bush et.al. seem to have forgotten this. It seems like more blind hatred of All Things Republican, or All Things Related To Bush.

Continuing with Truman, here is an excerpt from Oral History Interview with John W. Snyder, Secretary of the Treasury in the Truman Administration, 1946-53:

The number of Internal Revenue employees in the years of my tenure as Secretary of the Treasury fluctuated between 55,000 and 60,000. Among such a large number of public and private areas some persons of a corruptible nature are bound to be found, and unfortunately, they always will be found. With the Bureau's semi-political setup, it is understandable, on reflection, that a few of those corruptible employees should come to be located in key positions of great temptation. With the additional workload that came with the Second World War, it was almost certain that at least some corruptible men would yield to temptation in the hope that it would not be discovered.

The situation now is no different than it was then.

Stop raging about Bush. Rage about the problem, and then perhaps we can get something done about it.