Bush Faithful Rewarded With Plum Jobs

The Bush presidency lives on through more than 100 end-of-term appointments to a wide range of presidential panels, the Washington Post reports. The positions, many of which will outlast his successor's current term, have gone to George Bush's aides and political donors. Most are unpaid, although four top aides snagged jobs at a World Bank agency paying up to $3,000 a day.

The appointments—to bodies ranging from the Holocaust Memorial Museum to the US-Russia Polar Bear Commission—continue a presidential tradition of rewarding the faithful and trying to hold on to some influence, although critics say it perpetuates a "merry-go-round" of political personalities. "Once you get on the merry-go-round, you never get off, whether you belong there or not," said a spokeswoman for the Project on Government Oversight. (More political appointment stories.)