Remember when George W. Bush campaigned in 2000? Like most GOP candidates, he promised to “clean up” Washington. The chunk of this article reprinted below is my favorite block quote in a long history of awesome block quotes written about the banality and baseness of people in the federal government on Bush’s watch:

The investigation also concluded that several of the officials “frequently consumed alcohol at industry functions, had used cocaine and marijuana, and had sexual relationships with oil and gas company representatives.”

The investigation separately found that the program’s manager mixed official and personal business, and took money from a technical services firm in exchange for urging oil companies to hire the firm. In sometimes lurid detail, the report accuses him of having intimate relations with two subordinates, one of whom regularly sold him cocaine.

Can we stop this crap already? Can we finally see that this is what deregulation run amok actually leads to? Can there be any doubt that if McCain/Palin wins this election, this kind of thing will only be ratcheted up?