In a rush of appointments prior to leaving office, President Bush is naming key supporters to a number of presidential commissions. Today Bush left his stamp on the U.S. Holocaust Memorial, which I wrote about a few weeks back. Here is the list of appointments:

 
Elliot Abrams, of Virginia, on behalf of a five-year term beginning 01/16/09;
 
Joshua B. Bolten, of the District of Columbia, on behalf of a five-year term beginning 01/16/09;
 
Alan I. Casden, of California, on behalf of the remainder of a five-year term expiring 01/15/11;
 
Michael Chertoff, of New Jersey, on behalf of a five-year term beginning 01/16/09;
 
William Danhof, of Michigan, on behalf of a five-year term beginning 01/16/09;
 
Sanford Gottesman, of Texas, on behalf of a five-year term beginning 01/16/09;
 
Cheryl Feldman Halpern, of New Jersey, on behalf of a five-year term beginning 01/16/09;
 
J. David Heller, of Ohio, on behalf of a five-year term beginning 01/16/09;
 
Amy Kaslow, of Maryland, on behalf of a five-year term beginning 01/16/09;
 
M. Ronald Krongold, of Florida, on behalf of a five-year term beginning 01/16/09;
 
Michael B. Mukasey, of New York, on behalf of a five-year term beginning 01/16/09;
 
Daniel Silva, of the District of Columbia, on behalf of a five-year term beginning 01/16/09.
 

The list includes numerous of Bush’s biggest allies in the Jewish community. Notice Homeland Security Chief Michael Chertoff, White House Chief of Staff Joshua Bolten as well as Attorney General Michael Mukasey.
What makes Bush’s appointments here interesting is the degree to which the Holocaust Memorial has become an object of bipartisan support — to the point where appointment to its council is considered a political plum with which to reward diehard backers.
There was a time during the Clinton Administration, when conservatives, particularly neocons viewed the Holocaust Memorial with suspicion.  In 1993, Philip Gourevitch (not really a neocon, but writing on behalf of the Forward in its conservative incarnation) wrote a groundbreaking piece critical of the memorial in Harpers. Jonathan Rosen critqued it in the New York Times the same year. And my friend Ira Stoll described the museum as a “a playpen on behalf of Clinton loyalists” in the Wall Street Journal in 2001.
Now the Bushies shall have the Memorial with which to play.