$3000-a-day jobs for Bush friends

Tue, 10 Feb 2009 16:47:55 GMT

Former US president George W. Bush has appointed dozens of "friends and supporters" to lucrative jobs during his final days in office.

The Washington Post wrote on Tuesday that Bush made more than 100 such appointments, tapping associates to non-confirmable, obscure posts such as the President's Council on Physical Fitness and Sports and the US-Russia Polar Bear Commissions.

Former White House senior aides, Fred F. Fielding, Emmet T. Flood, William A. Burck and Daniel M. Price were all assigned to an obscure World Bank agency called the International Center for Settlement of Investment Disputes.

The jobs which last for six years are lucrative enough to pay up to USD 3,000 a day with all other expenses.

Roughly half of the jobs that Bush filled after Obama's election were given to donors who gave USD 1.9 million to Republicans since 2003. Additional seats went to "old hands" at previous Republican presidencies, such as that of Richard Nixon, Ronald Reagan and George H. W. Bush.

"It's a way for an outgoing president to have some ongoing influence, however modest, after he's gone," said Thomas E. Mann, a Brookings Institution scholar. "It also shows you that a lot of people just like positions, names, titles and affiliations, especially if it came from a presidential appointment."

US Senate Judiciary Committee chairman Patrick Leahy has urged the establishment of a "truth commission" to probe the misdeeds of Bush administration.

RB/DT

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