Poster Boy

Claude Allen could be a sort of poster boy for the Bush administration. As a White House policy aid making $160,000/yr. his job was coordinating abstinence education, faith based initiatives, and anti-abortion policy. I guess these must have left him a bit of free time, since he also got the job of coordinating the WH response to Hurricane Katrina, says Josh Marshall, though he notes that:
Maybe he was too busy waiting in the return line at Hecht's to focus on the hurricane stuff.
Allen was arrested for more than twenty-five counts of felony theft for ripping off Hecht's and Target. Details here.

Josh also observes that:
People have a lot of meta-theories for the decline in the White House's poll numbers and management effectiveness. But perhaps the more straightforward explanation is that with so many senior officials being arrested, it just leads to a breakdown in command and control.

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