# Nominations for worst cabinet secretary ever **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Created:** [May 27, 2018, 3:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nominations-for-worst-cabinet-secretary-ever/814887 "2018-05-27T03:29:42Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![septimus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/septimus/32/410_2.png) [@septimus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/septimus)\ **Post date:** [May 27, 2018, 3:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nominations-for-worst-cabinet-secretary-ever/814887/1 "2018-05-27T03:29:42Z")
Who are the most loathsome, corrupt and/or worthless U.S. cabinet secretaries in all of history? This is the Nomination thread; after we have enough nominations we’ll start a Game Room thread to determine the grand winner. **I’m running this thread as an experiment — I wonder if all ten of the _Ten Most Loathsome Cabinet Secretaries Ever_ were appointed by the same loathsome President.** I nominate [the disgusting pile of shit Betsy DeVos](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wbXcwtqp798). I have to admire Congressman Joe Courtney’s patience and courtesy in the video. If it had been me, I’d have said “Just stop repeating vile lies, or shut your fucking vomit-hole.” I don’t think Hollywood movies do a good job of depicting extreme evil. If Betsy DeVos auditioned for a role as Head of the KGB the casting director would laugh and offer her a job playing a retarded cleaning lady, or maybe Nurse Ratchett. Any other nominations? But if Betsy DeShitpile is the winner by acclamation I’ll ask the Mods to change thread title and we can just rant about her, along with her loathsome brother and loathsome husband. ---
**Author:** ![E-DUB](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/e-dub/32/403_2.png) [@E-DUB](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/E-DUB)\ **Post date:** [May 27, 2018, 3:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nominations-for-worst-cabinet-secretary-ever/814887/2 "2018-05-27T03:36:24Z")
I would nominate Earl Butz, and I can not lie. ---
**Author:** ![Bricker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/977dab/32.png) [@Bricker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bricker)\ **Post date:** [May 27, 2018, 3:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nominations-for-worst-cabinet-secretary-ever/814887/3 "2018-05-27T03:42:29Z")
Secretary of the Interior Albert Fall. ---
**Author:** ![PastTense](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pasttense/32/14550_2.png) [@PastTense](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PastTense)\ **Post date:** [May 27, 2018, 4:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nominations-for-worst-cabinet-secretary-ever/814887/4 "2018-05-27T04:08:35Z")
In case you don’t recognize the name Albert Falls, he was associated with the Teapot Dome scandal: > **[Teapot Dome scandal](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Teapot_Dome_scandal)** > > The Teapot Dome scandal was a bribery scandal involving the administration of United States President Warren G. Harding from 1921 to 1923. Secretary of the Interior Albert Bacon Fall had leased Navy petroleum reserves at Teapot Dome in Wyoming, as well as two locations in California, to private oil companies at low rates without competitive bidding. The leases were the subject of a seminal investigation by Senator Thomas J. Walsh. Convicted of accepting bribes from the oil companies, Fall be... ---
**Author:** ![Snowboarder\_Bo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/snowboarder_bo/32/229_2.png) [@Snowboarder\_Bo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Snowboarder_Bo)\ **Post date:** [May 27, 2018, 4:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nominations-for-worst-cabinet-secretary-ever/814887/5 "2018-05-27T04:14:48Z")
[Let me add to the nomination for Betsy DeVos](https://apnews.com/af5c2a81a19c4540aeb44855f2e63953/Court:-Gov't-violated-privacy-law-for-defrauded-students): > [@](#): > > A federal court has ruled that the Education Department violated privacy laws with regard to students defrauded by the Corinthian for-profit college chain. > > In a break with Obama administration policy, Education Secretary Betsy DeVos announced in December that some students cheated by the now-defunct schools would only get a part of their federal student loan forgiven. In order to determine how much to forgive, the agency analyzes average earnings of graduates from similar programs. > > But a California district court ruled late Friday that the department’s use of Social Security Administration data in order to calculate loan forgiveness violates the Privacy Act. The court ordered that the Education Department stop the practice and stop debt collection from these students. All to give her for-profit education friends a break _after_ they ripped people off. As if they were the victim for being called on their bullshit. ---
**Author:** ![andros](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/e480ec/32.png) [@andros](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/andros)\ **Post date:** [May 27, 2018, 4:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nominations-for-worst-cabinet-secretary-ever/814887/6 "2018-05-27T04:54:35Z")
I’m in for Scott Pruitt. . ---
**Author:** ![Flyer](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/flyer/32/7298_2.png) [@Flyer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Flyer)\ **Post date:** [May 27, 2018, 5:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nominations-for-worst-cabinet-secretary-ever/814887/7 "2018-05-27T05:12:49Z")
At least one of the ten has to be from the Grant administration. Grant could win battles, but he couldn’t judge character to save his life. Take your pick. > **[Grant administration scandals | Scandal cabinet and appointees](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grant_administration_scandals#Scandal_cabinet_and_appointees)** > > The most infamous of Grant's cabinet or other presidential appointees who were involved in scandals or criminal activity: ---
**Author:** ![journeyman\_southpaw](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/5e9695/32.png) [@journeyman\_southpaw](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/journeyman_southpaw)\ **Post date:** [May 27, 2018, 6:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nominations-for-worst-cabinet-secretary-ever/814887/8 "2018-05-27T06:01:24Z")
How about [James Watt?](http://www.ehn.org/profiles-in-scourges-james-wattweekend-reader-for-sun-feb-4-2530539879.html) ---
**Author:** ![friedo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/8edcca/32.png) [@friedo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/friedo)\ **Post date:** [May 27, 2018, 8:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nominations-for-worst-cabinet-secretary-ever/814887/9 "2018-05-27T08:04:50Z")
But where would we be without the steam engine? ---
**Author:** ![septimus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/septimus/32/410_2.png) [@septimus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/septimus)\ **Post date:** [May 27, 2018, 10:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nominations-for-worst-cabinet-secretary-ever/814887/10 "2018-05-27T10:40:41Z")
Nobody has mentioned Stephen Munchin, Ryan Zinke, Ben Carson or Rick Perry? Also eligible are officials considered to be of Cabinet rank or higher; these include John Kelly, Scott Pruitt, Mike Pence, John Bolton. Just because the Cabinet official was too stupid to steal millions from the taxpayer and settled for petty grift in the $100,000 range doesn’t make them ineligible. Traitors and perjurers are also welcome (I speak of perjury intended to debase America or its people not picayune fibs like pretending they didn’t cum during a blow job). Nominations will be ignored unless the submitter submits evidence or essay that their candidate is at least as despicable or loathsome as some on the above list. ---
**Author:** ![elucidator](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/8edcca/32.png) [@elucidator](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elucidator)\ **Post date:** [May 27, 2018, 11:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nominations-for-worst-cabinet-secretary-ever/814887/11 "2018-05-27T11:13:18Z")
We need a separation of two distinct types: the historic version, where the corrupt official has some respect for the position they hold, but are too weak to refuse corruption. And then the more recent type, who hates and despises everything that the position stands for. ---
**Author:** ![Jackmannii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jackmannii/32/311_2.png) [@Jackmannii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jackmannii)\ **Post date:** [May 27, 2018, 2:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nominations-for-worst-cabinet-secretary-ever/814887/12 "2018-05-27T14:48:31Z")
C’mon people, if Betsy DeVos is the best you can do, some history lessons are needed. How about former Attorney General A. Mitchell Palmer, whose civil liberties abuses during his 1919-1921 tenure helped ensure the founding of the ACLU? Or another A.G., John Mitchell, who went to jail after being found guilty of charges in connection with the Watergate affair (including perjuring himself during the coverup)? I came in to nominate Albert Fall, former Interior Secretary under Harding who made a cool $400K (in 1920s) dollars for giving his pals sweetheart oil lease deals and was the first cabinet member ever convicted and sent to prison for a major crime committed while in office. I see he also made Time’s worst-cabinet-secretaries-ever list, which includes the above-named A.G.s and some other doozies. [http://content.time.com/time/specials/packages/article/0,28804,1858691\_1858690\_1858521,00.html](http://content.time.com/time/specials/packages/article/0,28804,1858691_1858690_1858521,00.html) ---
**Author:** ![Morgenstern](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/f9ae1b/32.png) [@Morgenstern](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Morgenstern)\ **Post date:** [May 27, 2018, 2:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nominations-for-worst-cabinet-secretary-ever/814887/13 "2018-05-27T14:52:35Z")
> [@andros](#): > > I’m in for Scott Pruitt. > . Absolutely. Lock that jerk up. ---
**Author:** ![Stranger\_On\_A\_Train](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/13edae/32.png) [@Stranger\_On\_A\_Train](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Stranger_On_A_Train)\ **Post date:** [May 27, 2018, 4:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nominations-for-worst-cabinet-secretary-ever/814887/14 "2018-05-27T16:35:22Z")
Trump has given us so many _tremendous_ choices for wosrt Cabinet secretary, but my thoughts immediately ran to James Watt and Caspar Weinberger. However, although technically not a cabinet secretary, one truly awful human being takes the prize for worst Presidential advisor is [Henry](https://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/does-henry-kissinger-have-a-conscience) [Kissinger](https://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/looking-away-from-genocide). By comparioson, DeVos (truly an awful person, idiot extraordinaire, and apocalypter to boot), Zinke (not a geologist despite his claims), Scott Pruitt (on a mission to make corruption not just a job but a way of life), and Carson (found his luggage but still hasn’t read a real history book and has been named _Guinness Book of World Records_ “Dumbest Smart Person” for three years running) are rank amateurs, incompetent buffoons in contrast to Kissinger’s virulence and of course his death toll; he’s the Walter White of cabinet secretaries. Still, no one in living memory in a White House position has matched the malevolent evil of Dick ‘Mad Panda’ Cheney, who knowingly launched the US into a destructive war with a baseless premise about which we will be dealing with the fallout for decades to come. In a just world, Cheney and Kissinger would be hung upside down from bungies in a stadium and forced to fight to the death, with the survivor left to bleed out while Tina Turner’s “We Don’t Need Another Hero” blasts out at them. I had a point when I began this but it has since escaped me like a wanderer in the post-apocalyptic wastes of the Metro D.C. area after DeVos successfully eliminates all public education and is ravaged by rovaling gangs of Freedom Caucus and Consevative Fund members. Stranger ---
**Author:** ![kaylasdad99](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kaylasdad99/32/3398_2.png) [@kaylasdad99](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kaylasdad99)\ **Post date:** [May 27, 2018, 4:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nominations-for-worst-cabinet-secretary-ever/814887/15 "2018-05-27T16:42:43Z")
> [@Stranger\_On\_A\_Train](#): > > Trump has given us so many _tremendous_ choices for wosrt Cabinet secretary, but my thoughts immediately ran to James Watt and Caspar Weinberger. However, although technically not a cabinet secretary, one truly awful human being takes the prize for worst Presidential advisor is [Henry](https://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/does-henry-kissinger-have-a-conscience) [Kissinger](https://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/looking-away-from-genocide). By comparioson, DeVos (truly an awful person, idiot extraordinaire, and apocalypter to boot), Zinke (not a geologist despite his claims), Scott Pruitt (on a mission to make corruption not just a job but a way of life), and Carson (found his luggage but still hasn’t read a real history book and has been named _Guinness Book of World Records_ “Dumbest Smart Person” for three years running) are rank amateurs, incompetent buffoons in contrast to Kissinger’s virulence and of course his death toll; he’s the Walter White of cabinet secretaries. 😕 Kissinger was Secretary of State from 1973 to 1977. In what way was he “technically NOT” a cabinet secretary? P.S. Happy 95th Birthday, Dr. K! ---
**Author:** ![k9bfriender](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/k9bfriender/32/3283_2.png) [@k9bfriender](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/k9bfriender)\ **Post date:** [May 27, 2018, 4:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nominations-for-worst-cabinet-secretary-ever/814887/16 "2018-05-27T16:51:16Z")
> [@Stranger\_On\_A\_Train](#): > > I had a point when I began this but it has since escaped me like a wanderer in the post-apocalyptic wastes of the Metro D.C. area after DeVos successfully eliminates all public education and is ravaged by rovaling gangs of Freedom Caucus and Consevative Fund members. > > Stranger Was that modifier misplaced, or is DeVos in for a serious ravaging? ---
**Author:** ![PastTense](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pasttense/32/14550_2.png) [@PastTense](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PastTense)\ **Post date:** [May 27, 2018, 7:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nominations-for-worst-cabinet-secretary-ever/814887/17 "2018-05-27T19:13:04Z")
> [@journeyman\_southpaw](#): > > How about [James Watt?](http://www.ehn.org/profiles-in-scourges-james-wattweekend-reader-for-sun-feb-4-2530539879.html) On the other hand don’t you remember his crusade against sin-filled musicians like the Beach Boys? > [@](#): > > A ban on apple pie couldn’t have brought a stronger reaction than Interior Secretary James Watt’s decision, revealed yesterday, to ban “rock bands” like the Beach Boys and the Grass Roots from this year’s Fourth of July celebration on the Mall. > > The Beach Boys held Fourth of July concerts on the Mall attended by hundreds of thousands in 1980 and 1981, and the Grass Roots did the same in 1982. > > Watt had said in an interview he made the decision in order to keep what he called “the wrong element”–drinking, drug-taking youths–from attending the celebration. Instead, he arranged for “patriotic, family-based entertainment” to be provided by the U.S. Army Blues Band and Las Vegas crooner Wayne Newton. > **[Watt Sets Off Uproar With Music Ban](https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/politics/1983/04/07/watt-sets-off-uproar-with-music-ban/ddf51d7c-7161-46a9-a774-869fa71b6601/?utm_term=.0b7f8bb06d87)** ---
**Author:** ![Stranger\_On\_A\_Train](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/13edae/32.png) [@Stranger\_On\_A\_Train](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Stranger_On_A_Train)\ **Post date:** [May 27, 2018, 7:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nominations-for-worst-cabinet-secretary-ever/814887/18 "2018-05-27T19:42:39Z")
> [@kaylasdad99](#): > > 😕 > > Kissinger was Secretary of State from 1973 to 1977. In what way was he “technically NOT” a cabinet secretary? So he was. For some reason, I was just remembering him as National Security Advisor. In that case, my vote is for Kiss, which is not to detract from the vileness that this is this current clown car of degenerates. Stranger ---
**Author:** ![BigAppleBucky](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bigapplebucky/32/178_2.png) [@BigAppleBucky](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BigAppleBucky)\ **Post date:** [May 27, 2018, 10:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nominations-for-worst-cabinet-secretary-ever/814887/19 "2018-05-27T22:23:41Z")
I agree DeVos is a horror show, but I nominate Scott Pruitt. DeVos is just making America stupid, a process that will take years. Pruitt is trying to poison us all now. His ambitions are more acutely dangerous. ---
**Author:** ![foolsguinea](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/foolsguinea/32/14751_2.png) [@foolsguinea](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/foolsguinea)\ **Post date:** [May 27, 2018, 11:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nominations-for-worst-cabinet-secretary-ever/814887/20 "2018-05-27T23:37:55Z")
My first thought was Ben Carson for sheer mental incompetence, but sadly he probably has competition in that respect. That said, as mentioned, Henry Kissinger is a real-life super-villain, and should have been dragged to the Hague in chains long ago. I think Scott Pruitt may be even more evil in his own way, as hard as that is to believe; but is he cabinet-level or just agency-level? [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nominations-for-worst-cabinet-secretary-ever/814887.md?page=2)