Bush Faithful Rewarded With Jobs

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Registered: 03-18-2000
Bush Faithful Rewarded With Jobs
2
Wed, 02-11-2009 - 9:22am

King George bestows positions on the faithful.


On the Way Out, He Placed Aides and Big-Money GOP Donors


Fred F. Fielding, Emmet T. Flood, William A. Burck and Daniel M. Price worked together at the White House under George W. Bush. Less than two weeks before leaving office, Bush made sure the senior aides shared a new assignment, naming them to an obscure World Bank agency called the International Center for Settlement of Investment Disputes.


The appointments are for six years and are potentially lucrative, paying up to $3,000 a day plus travel and other expenses if an appointee is chosen to hear a case. Bush also named two other prominent Republican lawyers to the agency, which attempts to broker international finance disagreements.


Bush made more than 100 such end-of-term appointments to a constellation of presidential boards and panels, such as the President's Council on Physical Fitness and Sports and the U.S.-Russia Polar Bear Commission. Like other presidents, he often turned to close aides and top political supporters to fill the last-minute postings, many of which will outlast President Obama's current term.


Nearly half of Bush's appointments after Election Day were filled by donors who gave a total of nearly $1.9 million to Republicans since 2003, according to an analysis of the postings. At least 20 of the positions were filled by former Bush aides, plus others filled by old hands from the administrations of Richard M. Nixon, Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush.


Most of the positions are unpaid and are valued more for their status than for monetary compensation. Yet the appointments show how political connections matter even for the most obscure Washington jobs, and they illustrate the extent to which presidents have an impact well after they leave the White House.


"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."



The World Bank's settlement center, based in Washington, bills itself as the "leading international arbitration institution" for disputes between nation-states and private corporations. Four White House aides were appointed to the agency on Jan. 6 as conciliators or arbitrators: Fielding, who was chief White House counsel; Flood, a special counsel; Burck, an associate counsel; and Price, a deputy national security adviser. J.C. Boggs, president of the Republican National Lawyers Association, and Ronald A. Cass, who served under Reagan and the elder Bush, were also named.


Conciliators and arbitrators earn "$3,000 per day of meetings or other work performed in connection with the proceedings, as well as subsistence allowances and reimbursement of travel expenses," according to the center's published fee schedule.


But David Theis, a World Bank spokesman, said the agency is set up like a pool, with up to eight appointees from each of the agency's 143 member countries. As a result, he said, about 80 percent of them never participate in a case, and therefore receive no pay.


http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/02/09/AR2009020902519.html?nav=hcmodule


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Edited 2/11/2009 9:25 am ET by libraone

 


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Registered: 02-19-2008
Wed, 02-11-2009 - 12:26pm
Every President does this.
iVillage Member
Registered: 03-23-2003
Wed, 02-11-2009 - 4:14pm

I don't see where she, or the article, said that they didn't.