homunculi

ho·mun·cu·li
1. an artificially made dwarf, supposedly produced in a flask by an alchemist.
2. a diminutive human being.
3. the human fetus.
4. A miniature, fully formed individual believed by adherents of the early biological theory of preformation to be present in the sperm cell.

His lackluster attorney-general Alberto Gonzales, who was forced to resign in disgrace, was only the most visible of an army of over-promoted, ideologically vetted homunculi.