Make Big Donation To Bush Library And Get Administration Access

Hey, you! Make a six-figure or so donation to the Bush Library and you can get access to key administration figures! Dick Cheney and Condoleezza Rice could meet with you but George Bush barely sees anybody….

That’s what the Sunday Times says Stephen Payne, a Bush pioneer and a political appointee to the Homeland Security Advisory Council more or less told an undercover reporter who he apparently thought was one of those well-heeled people who aren’t among the “whiners” who McCain (increasingly distant if close at all) adviser Phil Gramm feels has mental problems because they think the United States is in a recession.

And, oh.

His exact pitch has been caught on tape in a newspaper undercover report.

Details and link to video are here.

FOOTNOTE: It has long been suspected that Presidents use some kind of leverage to get donors to give to their libraries. What is notable here again is how this administration came into office in 2000 insisting it would be different from the Clinton administration and operate under a different standard.

And it has: on several fronts it has been more blatant.