This is the "A" team?

Amid the growing public furor over manipulation of prewar intelligence about Iraq, and residual public disgust over the appointment of inept presidential crony Michael Brown to head the Federal Emergency Management Agency, the Bush administration packed the Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board (FIAB) with campaign donors.

"President Bush last week appointed nine campaign contributors, including three longtime fundraisers, to his Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board, a 16-member panel of individuals from the private sector who advise the president on the quality and effectiveness of U.S. intelligence efforts," reported Newsweek's web edition on November 2.

Mr. Bush reappointed William DeWitt, "an Ohio businessman who has raised more than $300,000 for the president's campaigns, for a third two-year term on the panel," continued the report. "Originally appointed in 2001, just a few weeks after the 9/11 attacks, DeWitt, who was also a top fund-raiser for Bush's 2004 Inaugural committee, was a partner with Bush in the Texas Rangers baseball team." Other donors include incoming chairman Stephen Friedman, former Commerce Secretary Don Evans, Texas oilman Ray Hunt, former Reagan adviser Arthur Culvahouse, retired admiral David Jeremiah, and presidential fundraisers Martin Faga, and John L. Morrison.

Newsweek notes that Bill Clinton's appointments to the FIAB included "two donors who gave $100,000 apiece to the Democratic National Committee: New York investment banker Stan Shuman and Texas real estate magnate Richard Bloch." It's an accomplishment, of sorts, for George W. Bush to eclipse Bill Clinton's performance in using executive branch appointments as fundraising tools.