I'm declaring the
voting closed on people whose reputations are better and place-in-history improved by virtue of service under GW Bush.
Overall winner:
Christopher Hill, State Department careerist now in charge of North Korean negotiations. Better known than he was six years ago, and in a good way!
Dark-horse category winner:
Sandy Randt, Yale classmate of GW Bush who has been ambassador to China since the beginning of the Administration; lawyer and Mandarin-speaker, unknown to 300 million Americans but respected by 1.3 billion Chinese.
Interesting honorable mentions in their own special categories:
Robert Gates (backing down from Donald Rumsfeld);
Robert Zoellick (backing down from Paul Wolfowitz); conceivably
David Petraeus, depending how the next 18 months goes. Possibly
Patrick Fitzgerald, with the ambiguous legacy of his prosecutions? (Bad for the Bush administration; also bad for the press.) Also depending on the next 18 months,
Henry Paulson?
Honorary winners (technically disqualified since they're not part of the administration but instead feed off it): Jon Stewart; Stephen Colbert; staff of The Onion.
This article available online at:
http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2007/09/last-word-on-heroes-of-the-bush-administration/7746/