More front page news about nuthin’
Perusing the news today, i came to this story in the Washington Post, entitled “Administration Moves to Protect Key Appointees” about the Bush Administration entrenching some of their political appointees to career civil service jobs. The story appears above the fold on the front page;
Here’s some of the first few lines;
The transfer of political appointees into permanent federal positions, called “burrowing” by career officials, creates security for those employees, and at least initially will deprive the incoming Obama administration of the chance to install its preferred appointees in some key jobs.
Similar efforts are taking place at other agencies. Two political hires at the Labor Department have already secured career posts there, and one at the Department of Housing and Urban Development is trying to make the switch.
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.
Sounds pretty serious, huh? It sounds like the Bush Administration is pulling something underhanded by shifting twenty appointees to permanent positions and the Washington Post caught them red handed at something pretty nefarious, doesn’t it? Well if you have the staying power to read to the sixth paragraph (which appears, strangely enough, off of the front page portion of the story) you’ll discover it’s not new. Compared to the Bush Administration’s 20, the Clintons did the same favor for 46 appointees;
In its last 12 months, the Clinton administration approved 47 such moves, including seven at the senior executive level. Federal employees with civil service status receive job protections that make it very difficult for managers to remove them.
Judging by the comments section, WaPo’s readers didn’t bother to read that it’s a common practice, or that Clinton did it more often – they’re calling for Bush’s head (yet again). It’s the same thing they did to Sarah Palin – make things she did in office sound underhanded and then later in the story admit it was completely above board and legal – giving the ombudsman something with which to defend the paper, that being; it’s not the Post’s fault that their readers have attention-deficit syndrome and can’t read the story beyond the headline.
I’m sure the Washington Post will be spinning their wheels on January 21st looking for a Republican to blame the nation’s ills on.
From the article:
“The practice of placing political appointees into permanent civil service posts before an administration ends is not new. In its last 12 months, the Clinton administration approved 47 such moves, including seven at the senior executive level. Federal employees with civil service status receive job protections that make it very difficult for managers to remove them.”
Linda tripp and Monica Lewinsky were moved to jobs outside the Clinton White House this way.
Forgot to mention, Tripp’s job was to buy her silence, when she didn’t play ball, the Clintons knifed her.
It’s a shame Bush did not intervein when he became President.