DANIEL SHORR: Eight months from the demise of the Bush administration, one can see it beginning to unravel from forced and voluntary resignations. At play has been a modern version of the Andrew Jackson spoil system: to the victor belongs the spoils, the spoils being jobs and contracts for friends and financial supporters. A recent example is the Lurita Alexis Doan, who is head of the General Services Administration, responsible for billions of dollars in contracts as the government's landlord.</s>DANIEL SHORR: She had been controversial in the agency for favoring friends and supporters with contracts. Finally, congressional investigations caught up with her and she said simply, I have been asked by the White House to resign. And now Special Counsel Scott Bloch, who was investigating the Doan case, has himself come under scrutiny, his office and home raided by the FBI. Then there was Housing Secretary Alphonso Jackson, also suspected of favoring his political friends with government contracts. He announced his resignation in the midst of a national housing crisis, saying, There comes a time when one must attend more diligently to personal and family matters.</s>DANIEL SHORR: A good man, said President Bush, who didn't lift a finger to save him, as he might have done in pre-lame duck days. Then the other kind of resignation by those who have just had enough. The latest of these voluntary departures is Alice Fisher, the respected head of the Criminal Division of the Justice Department. Hers is part of the hemorrhage from the department in the wake of the forced resignation of Attorney General Alberto Gonzales.</s>DANIEL SHORR: She gave no specific reason for leaving, but vividly remembered is the dismay that swept through the Justice Department over policy disputes on issues like surveillance, the treatment of detainees, and the political firing of U.S. attorneys. This looks like the start of an exodus of officials and departures both voluntary and forced as the Bush administration begins to pack its bags. This is Daniel Shorr.
NPR Senior News Analyst Daniel Schorr says that eight months before the end of the Bush administration, there has been a spate of forced and voluntary resignations.