1115.org

Some people work so hard they are said to be literally living in their office. So what do you say about someone who has gone to so much trouble to make his office bathroom livable in?

If Sen. Ken Salazar (D-Colo.) is confirmed this month as interior secretary, he’ll have a snappy, scarcely used bathroom in his fifth-floor office, thanks to Dirk Kempthorne, the outgoing secretary.

Seems Kempthorne spent about $235,000 in taxpayer funds renovating the bathroom a few months ago, which included installing a new shower, a refrigerator and a freezer and buying monogrammed towels, department officials told our colleague Derek Kravitz.

The General Services Administration approved and partially funded the project, an Interior Department official said. The GSA paid about half the cost to refurbish aging plumbing, which needed to be replaced within four years.

But department officials say much of the money was spent on lavish wood paneling and tile. Among the choice items found in the new bathroom: wainscot wood panels extending from floor to ceiling and cabinet doors revealing a working refrigerator and freezer.

That’s our money that, to borrow a phrase from Leonard Cohen, “is curling up like smoke above his shoulder”.

And buying monogrammed towels just before he leaves office is such a lovely touch. With the whole economy in the toilet the way it is, nothing expresses the Bush administration’s attitude to the travails of common Americans more eloquently than that little parting shot.