Dick Cheney vs. Condoleezza Rice vs. Donald Rumsfeld vs. Alberto Gonzales vs. Michael Chertoff

As we are in the waning days of the George W. Bush administration, I thought it might be worth to have a look at some important, also at times controversial cabinet members.



Overall, Cheney had the highest Google-popularity. Then came Rice, Rumsfeld, Gonzales and Chertoff. When I looked a little closer though, Cheney's ranking had a lot to do first with the 2004 presidential election campaign and the February 2006 shooting incident—while hunting, he carelessly but accidentally shot an elderly friend in the face, neck and torso; the friend then apologized for the inconvenience... Rice's peaks fell in April 2004 (refusal and eventual testimony before the 9/11 Commission), November 2004 (presidential election) and February 2005. The latter peak is harder to explain. It might have had something to do with the State of the Union address and/or the subsequent withdrawal of North Korea from talks. Rumsfeld caught the attention of Googlers esp. in May 2004 and November 2006 (his forced resignation). The former peak may have been caused by the arguments before the US Supreme Court in the Hamdi v. Rumsfeld case about the constitutionality of the government's withholding due process of law from a US citizen. It is interesting to note that Gonzales' resignation in September 2007 did not lead to much extra Googling. His credibility had been suffering, caused by among other matters his disastrous July testimony about NSA domestic eavesdropping before the Senate Judiciary Committee. He was then the subject of several attempts to pass no-confidence motions in Congress and eventually was forced to resign. In other words, maybe there's no peak because matters were stretched out over several months. Finally, Chertoff's most significant peak (January 2005) preceded his installation as Secretary of Homeland Security.

Nancy Pelosi vs. Henry Paulson vs. Barney Frank vs. Ben Bernanke vs. Harry Reid vs. Mitch McConnell vs. John Boehner vs. Spencer Bachus et al.

Today, I investigated the major players in the negotiations leading to the proposed "mother of all bailouts" a.k.a. the Emergency Economic Stabilization Act of 2008. First, I faced off Treasury Secretary Paulson, Federal Reserve Chairman Bernanke and the major Democratic leaders involved: House Speaker Pelosi, Senate Majority Leader Reid and House Financial Services Committee Chair Frank.



I limited the graph to the year 2008. Pelosi was the most powerful: constantly-high Google-popularity. However, towards the end, the financial crisis pushed Frank and esp. Paulson to the forefront, overtaking her. In case there were any doubt, the House of Representatives weighed heavier than the Senate: just compare Pelosi and Reid. Let's have a look at what a face-off with the major Republican leaders (House Minority Leader Boehner, Senate Minority Leader McConnell, House Financial Services Committee Ranking Member Baucus) yielded:



Paulson and Bernanke dominated the Republicans, esp. at the end. Considering the results of the first face-off, the latter were pretty much bystanders, at least according to their Google-popularity... Why didn't I look into President Bush and the two major presidential candidates? There was that high-profile meeting after all? Actually, I did:



As you can see, they were the elephants in the (negotiating) room, esp. Obama and McCain. Anyway, now comes the hard part: getting majorities in the House and the Senate to sign off on the bailout...