Bush Political HUD Staffers Too Stupid for Email

You may have heard of HUD Secretary Alphonso Jackson.

He was the one who said in a public speech, that he would not make grants to Democrats.

Well, it now appears that he cut off funding to the Philadelphia Housing Authority because they refused to give a vacant lot to a friend of his.

The housing authority sued, and their email records have been introduced into evidence, and it's ugly^*.

After Philadelphia's housing director refused a demand by President Bush's housing secretary to transfer a piece of city property to a business friend, two top political appointees at the department exchanged e-mails discussing the pain they could cause the Philadelphia director.

"Would you like me to make his life less happy? If so, how?" Orlando J. Cabrera, then-assistant secretary at the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, wrote about Philadelphia housing director Carl R. Greene.

"Take away all of his Federal dollars?" responded Kim Kendrick, an assistant secretary who oversaw accessible housing. She typed symbols for a smiley-face, ":-D," at the end of her January 2007 note.

Cabrera wrote back a few minutes later: "Let me look into that possibility."

^*I don't just mean ugly, I mean ugly even by the standards of the Bush administration, which is makes this AMC Pacer ugly.