The push to appoint Julie Myers to head the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency, part of the Department of Homeland Security, comes in the midst of intense debate over the qualifications of department political appointees involved in the sluggish response to Hurricane Katrina.
Get this:
Even Republican Senator George Voinivich says she's not qualified for the job. And what's she got to say to that?
In written answers to questions from Congress, Myers highlighted her year-long job as assistant secretary for export enforcement at Commerce, where she said she supervised 170 employees and a $25 million budget.
Good God. I'm more qualified for that job than she is.
Except for this:
Her uncle is Air Force Gen. Richard B. Myers, the departing chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. She married [Homeland Security Secretary Michael] Chertoff's current chief of staff, John F. Wood, on Saturday.
They're not even bothering to cover it up to any more.
---
No doubt this latest round of neo-cronyism will lead to more no-bid contract awards for border guards and immigration administration. But I'm more worried about what this political incest is leading to. We've already seen a mass exodus of competent career government employees who'd rather take their chances in the private sector than work under incompetent members of the greater Bush friends and family circle. By 2008, there will be nobody left in federal government who knows what the hell they're doing.
TL,
ReplyDeleteThat's precisely what I fear.
Ariadne,
It really is difficult to watch.