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Bushies Burrowing Into Career Posts At Interior, Other Departments
The Bush administration's days may be numbered, but some loyal Bushies are taking steps to worm themselves or their subordinates into the federal bureaucracy, so that they can't be dislodged by the incoming Obama administration.
The Washington Post reports:
Between March 1 and Nov. 3, according to the federal Office of Personnel Management, the Bush administration allowed 20 political appointees to become career civil servants.
In one example of what some Washington veterans call the "headless nail" phenomenon -- in which political appointees quietly move into career jobs ithin their departments, making it hard for the incoming administration to remove them -- David Bernhardt, the top lawyer for the Interior Department, has shifted six of his deputies into senior civil service positions. One of these, Robert Comer, was found by an internal DOI report to have struck an agreement on grazing with a Wyoming rancher "with total disregard for the concerns raised by career field personnel." Another, Matthew McKeown, has attracted criticism from environmentalists for promoting grazing and logging on public lands.
Bernhardt told the Post: "I believe these management decisions will strengthen the professionalism of the Office of the Solicitor and result in greater service to the Department of the Interior. However, the next solicitor and the department's management team are free to walk a different path."
But a career DOI official disagreed: "It is an attempt by the outgoing administration to limit as much as possible [the incoming administration's] ability to put its policy imprint on the Department of Interior."
Two Labor Department political appointees have also secured civil service jobs there.
This strategy is hardly unique to the Bush administration. In its final year of existence, the Clinton administration, says the Post, made 47 such moves, "including seven at the senior executive level."
Josh
Zachary
I notice a lot of these articles pointing out the nefarious deeds of the Bush administration end with a comparison to the Clinton years, and lo and behold Bill was up to his ears in the same crap.
Another recent example was with the push to write new regulations at the EPA, FDA, etc. in an effort to tie the next president's hands. Pardons is another example.
November 18, 2008 12:20 PM | Reply | Permalink
Ruthless criminals. They have done everything to seed the destruction of the country. If they cannot control it, nobody will.
November 18, 2008 12:43 PM | Reply | Permalink
While its true Clinton "pardoned" his brother..which some find appaling..Bush is trying to not only give out "blanket pardons" (for torture and other criminal acts) Bush is trying his best to pardon himself..a "one-up" on Bill Clinton and unprecedented in the history of pardons...Bush is the king of UnConstitutional "firsts"
November 18, 2008 12:49 PM | Reply | Permalink
I'm sure they'll be impressed in the Hague.
November 20, 2008 9:35 AM | Reply | Permalink
Insidious little maggots, aren't they?..will President Obama "root" them out...or leave them to continue rotting away at the heart of democracy....
November 18, 2008 12:52 PM | Reply | Permalink
The "change" America needs, and desires, is much larger than a single office or ideology. We need to ensure that anyone placed in a position to safeguard the people is not a crony, but is actually working for us. Congress has a 9% approval rating because they aren't taking care of Americans, well at least not the average American.
Its time to redefine Capitalism and especially its relationship to government. Capitalism's inherent corruption and class stratification will only be perpetuated by allowing these kinds of transfers to occur. C'mon Obama, make government work!
November 18, 2008 1:05 PM | Reply | Permalink
Worthy of a bush legacy so dependant on kremlin idealogy.
November 18, 2008 1:39 PM | Reply | Permalink
Yes, previous administrations left their residue in various departments. There is a divergence in that business of competency that had been required from their peeps, though.
November 18, 2008 1:49 PM | Reply | Permalink
Well, it doesn't seemed to have done any good for Clinton appointees to have "burrowed" into various departments once Bush came into office. He was able to corrupt and politicize just about anything he wanted to. So we can only hope that the Bushies that are burrowing will be just as ineffective.
November 18, 2008 1:49 PM | Reply | Permalink
The Bush maggots can just be "assigned" to stare out the window all day (which is probably the same thing that happened to the Clinton burrowers). Waste of the taxpayers' money, but a small one in the grand scheme of things.
November 18, 2008 2:07 PM | Reply | Permalink
Actually, this is very common activity in any outgoing administration. It's called trying to help people who worked for you get secure employment now that the administration is ending. There is no reason to automatically conclude that the staff wouldn't be as ethical and loyal to their new bosses as they were to the former ones. (In other words, the ones that were ethical before probably won't be in the future, and the ones who were will be in the future.) Political appointees face an uncertain future when there is a shift in parties, and some bosses "look out for" the people that they believe have done a good job or are particularly vulnerable. As pointed out, Clinton's people did the same, and I've seen it happen in three shifts of party in State government.
November 18, 2008 2:10 PM | Reply | Permalink
But the Clinton people were much less likely to be incompetent, dishonest ideologues. This kind of false-equivalence comment greatly underestimates just how "special" the Bush Maladministration has been.
November 18, 2008 2:22 PM | Reply | Permalink
Why are they all these repellent, pasty-faced dweebs? The only complimentary thing I can say about that poster-boy Bushie is that, for a minute anyway, at least I'm not looking at that jowly fuck Lieberman.
November 18, 2008 2:18 PM | Reply | Permalink
So far I haven't seen any change.
Have you???
November 18, 2008 2:32 PM | Reply | Permalink
I am retired from 31 years with an agency of the Department of the Interior. With that as background I can say that this story should not even be considered "news." At the end of every Administration there is a rush to shove Schedule C employees into civil service positions. It is done in Interior and every other department of the government. Its done all of the time and as long as OPM rules and regulations are followed, the practice is legal.
Were it me I would be focusing on real issues from Interior, things like bovine grazing on National Wildlife Refuges, oil well drilling on National Wildlife Refuges and the evisceration of the Endangered Species Act for political purposes (any guesses yet what agency I worked for in Interior?). Those are real issues that need to be watched over. Putting a few political hacks in positions that they will leave in a year or two to become lobbyists really doesn't matter.
November 18, 2008 2:33 PM | Reply | Permalink
I'll second your post. I spent 26 years in the Commerce Department, the last twelve just below the political appointees. There are good political appointees and bad ones. The career staff knows the difference and will quickly inform the incoming political appointees which of their staff had burrowed in. Many of them tend to be lawyers and will be placed in the General Counsel's or Solicitor's Office since career appointments of lawyers can be made without competition. Conversely, it is relatively easy to fire lawyers if they do not follow the policy of the incoming administration. I have seen a few political appointees who burrowed in and had quite successful careers in government.
November 18, 2008 2:52 PM | Reply | Permalink
Yes, but does "successful" in this context mean "continuing to undermine/promote to whatever degree possible the policies Bush put you there to undermine/promote?
November 18, 2008 4:44 PM | Reply | Permalink
Yes, but does "successful" in this context mean "continuing to undermine/promote to whatever degree possible the policies Bush put you there to undermine/promote?
November 18, 2008 4:45 PM | Reply | Permalink
I didn't double-post that! It happened all by itself! Honest!
November 18, 2008 4:46 PM | Reply | Permalink
I'm afraid it sounds like we're dealing with scabies
...there is usually little evidence of infestation for the first month (range 2 to 6 weeks). After this time and insubsequent infestations, people usually become sensitized to mites and symptoms generally occur within 1 to 4 days.
...mites burrowing under the skin cause a rash, which is most frequently found on the hands, particularly the webbing between the fingers; the folds of the wrist, elbow or knee; the penis; the breast; or the shoulder blades.
So you can see, being republicans, there are definitely some areas where infestation is likely to be particularly nasty and/or news-worthy.
November 18, 2008 3:37 PM | Reply | Permalink
The degree of devotion to their cause among the Zom-Bushes is truly unparalleled. Rational people are extremely slow to comprehend how destructive these people are because it makes no sense. They are irrational unless your highest value is profit for the private sector. When nothing else matters, their deeds make perfect sense. To people who put their planet as the highest priority, it boggles the mind. These people should be thrown off the planet because they have no respect or appreciation for how much they need what it provides. These people live in the fantasy that they do not need anybody.
November 18, 2008 3:42 PM | Reply | Permalink
I don't think there will be any difficulty in investigating and charging these burrowers, let alone firing them. Since their political remit was in direct conflict with their jobs, that is.
And there is always peculation. And that will be easy enough to find among them.
Is Obama going along to get along? He can't be that stupid. Is he giving them enough rope to hang themselves? We'll see. Or does Obama believe the only change we need is a small adjustment or two, a little fine-tuning? Is he that stupid?
All I know for sure is, it's gonna be very tense until Obama's intents and methods become clearer.
November 18, 2008 3:56 PM | Reply | Permalink
I think what is really important is what Curlew and jsj20002 contribute towards this news. Of course it only makes sense that many of those that come in with any administration truly do work diligently and ethically as opposed to idealogically. Whatever the case may be or whatever any of our bias happen to be the most important issue is understanding who these people are what they ahve done in the past. If anyone else has some background on these guys then put it in the comment section.
Here is what little I have found so far:
Robert Comer:
ROBERT D. COMER, Cooperative Conservation: The Federalism Underpinnings to Public Involvement in the Management of Public Lands. Robert Comer is Rocky Mountain Regional Solicitor for the U.S. Department of the Interior in Lakewood, Colorado. His office provides legal services to every agency of the Department, including for those issues involving public lands. Previously, Mr. Comer served an appointment as the Department's Associate Solicitor for Land and Water Resources in Washington D.C., was an attorney with Snell & Wilmer in Denver, and Associate General Counsel for Asarco, a Fortune 500 specialty metals and chemical company. Prior to the practice of law, Mr. Comer had been president, vice president, and Director of Applied Ecology at Thorne Ecological Institute. He has written exrtensively on environmental and natural resource topics and has chaired the American Bar Association Public Land and Resources, Water Quality and Wetlands, and Mining Committees. He has degrees in biology, environmental conservation and law from CU-Boulder and a Masters in Forest Science from the Yale University School of Forestry and Environmental Studies.
http://www.peer.org/news/news_id.php?row_id=510
Cooperative Conservation - seems to be the big issue for which intent and interpretation are sticky subjects. Form what little I have gathered this has been viewed in the Enviro-side as corporatization of land and a lack of involvement by local governances to be involved in decision making process.
And the other: Matthew McKeown,
Matt McKeown is the Deputy Solicitor for the United States Department of the Interior. As the second highest ranking legal officer for the Department of the Interior, Matt oversees a team of over 400 lawyers and support staff. Prior to taking on the responsibilities of Deputy Solicitor, Matt served as Associate Solicitor for Land and Water. Matt’s first position with the Bush Administration’s team at the Interior Department was Special Assistant to the Solicitor.
During his tenure at the Interior Department, Matt has worked on many projects that have had a fundamental impact on property rights. He negotiated a landmark settlement involving thousands of stock watering water right claims where the federal government recognized for the first time that public land grazers have a property interest in the water that their livestock consume on federal land. Matt has coordinated the Department’s legal work on the Healthy Forest Initiative. He negotiated a series of settlements aimed at improving the implementation of the Northwest forest plan that will result in a more reliable supply of timber from federal land for timber dependent communities in the Pacific Northwest. Matt negotiated the memorandum of understanding between the Department and the State of Utah that for the first time sets out a process for resolving the ownership of R.S. 2477 rights-of-way. And he helped negotiate the settlement that recognizes that wilderness must be managed in a way that is consistent with federal law.
Prior to joining the Bush administration’s team at Interior, Matt was a Deputy Attorney General for the State of Idaho where he worked on local government and natural resource issues. His work for the State of Idaho included defending two voter initiatives and imposing term limits. He also litigated the State of Idaho’s successful challenge to the Clinton administration’s “roadless rules.”
Mother Jones has a good article on this subject:
http://www.motherjones.com/news/outfront/2008/11/outfront-bushies-dig-in.html
November 18, 2008 3:58 PM | Reply | Permalink
For any of Bush's headless nails who turn out to be truly objectionable, I would suggest relocating their offices to Baghdad.
November 20, 2008 9:37 AM | Reply | Permalink