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.

Remember, this was before Bush as the Master of all Evil, and had just been elected as a 'uniter'. He directed his staff to downplay and under-report any incidents, especially minor things like missing 'W''s, in the interest of trying to have a smooth transition and lower the temperature of the hostilities.

That’s a change from when Bush’s people arrived and all of the W’s were missing while Clinton’s people expressed only surprise and dismay at the caper.

Bullshit!!!

Now can we put this myth to bed once and for all.
The White House vandal scandal that wasn't

Now it seems those closely detailed stories were largely bunk. Last week it was revealed that a formal review by the General Accounting Office, Congress' investigative agency, “had found no damage to the offices of the White House's East or West Wings or EOB” and that Bush's own representatives had reported “there is no record of damage that may have been deliberately caused by the employees of the Clinton administration.”

While cautious GSA staffers won't issue a blanket exoneration of the Clinton team, Bernard Ungar, the agency's director of physical infrastructure, told Salon the media clearly exaggerated the extent of the damage. According to the terse GSA statement that formed the basis of Ungar's conclusion, “the condition of the real property was consistent with what we would expect to encounter when tenants vacate office space after an extended occupancy.”

You know, I couldn't resist just reflecting on all those good things the Bush administration is leaving the newly elected administration, and how polite they're being about it. This was just a sweet entry.