Time Mag.: Top 10 Worst Cabinet Members

Sometimes those purported to be the best and the brightest are anything but. In the spirit of not making the same mistakes twice, TIME examines some of modern history's less-than-fabulous Cabinet appointments.

[The list includes:]

A. Mitchell Palmer - Attorney General, 1919-1921

Albert Fall - Secretary of the Interior, 1921-1923

Robert McNamara - Secretary of Defense, 1961-1968

Earl Butz - Secretary of Agriculture, 1971-76

John Mitchell - Attorney General, 1969-1972

James Watt - Secretary of the Interior, 1981-1983

Hazel O'Leary - Secretary of Energy, 1993-1997

Donald Rumsfeld - Secretary of Defense, 1975-77, 2001-2006

Michael Brown - Director of FEMA*, 2003-2005

Alberto Gonzales - Attorney General, 2005-2007