In the wake of Former Interior Secretary Gale Norton's Abramoff-tainted resignation, President Bush has named Idaho Governor Dirk Kempthorne to carry Norton's oily baton in hopes of fulfilling Norton's greatest unrealized goal -- to fashionably deface the Arctic National Wildlife Preserve for an unnamed dose of crude first deliverable multiple decades down the road -- likely a point when oil dependence, foreign or domestic, should be nill.

"Dirk understands that those who live closest to the land know how to [exploit] it best," Bush said as he introduced his nominee to reporters in the Oval Office late in the day. "And he will work closely with state and local leaders to ensure [profitable exploitation] of our resources." Bush said Kempthorne would help "develop the energy potential of federal lands and waters in environmentally [abusive] ways."

(Note: words contained in "[]" denote text auto-inserted at the discretion of our 'truth forcing' machine and were probably not actually stated by President Bush.)

In response, Dirk has received all the praise he deserves from those 'in the know'.

Secretary of the Interior Gale Norton has resigned from her post in the Bush administration after five years at  that post. An anonymous source claims Norton "is not leaving because of any problems" but simply "wants to go home for a while."

Proclaimed reasons notwithstanding, Norton leaves as the Abramoff scandal is progressively enveloping the White House - a scandal that has firmly ensnared the interior secretary.

Investigators have unearthed e-mails showing Rep. Tom DeLay's office tried to help lobbyist Jack Abramoff get a high-level Bush administration meeting for Indian clients, an effort that succeeded after the tribes began making $250,000 in donations.

Tribal money went both to a group founded by Interior Secretary Gale Norton, the Cabinet secretary Abramoff was trying to meet, as well as to DeLay's personal charity.

"Do you think you could call that friend and set up a meeting?" then-DeLay staffer Tony Rudy asked fellow House aide Thomas Pyle in a Dec. 29, 2000, e-mail titled "Gale Norton-Interior Secretary." President Bush had nominated Norton to the post the day before.

Rudy wrote Abramoff that same day promising he had "good news" about securing a meeting with Norton, forwarding information about the environmental group Norton had founded, according to e-mails obtained by investigators and reviewed by The Associated Press. Rudy's message to Abramoff was sent from Congress' official e-mail system.

Within months, Abramoff clients donated heavily to the Norton-founded group and to DeLay's personal charity. The Coushatta Indian tribe, for instance, wrote checks in March 2001 for $50,000 to the Norton group and $10,000 to the DeLay Foundation, tribal records show.

The lobbyist and the Coushattas eventually won face-to-face time with the secretary during a Sept. 24, 2001, dinner sponsored by the group she had founded.