NYT: Eight Years Is More Than Enough

[babylonsister]

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/23/opinion/23sun2-2.html?_r=1&th&emc=th

Eight Years Is More Than Enough

Published: November 23, 2008

As the sun sets on the Bush administration, the survival rite known as burrowing is under way. Burrowing is when favored political appointees are transformed into civil servants and granted instant tenure on the federal payroll.

There is, of course, nothing new in this cynical practice. Dozens of political loyalists were burrowed in the final months of the Clinton administration. But the score of Bush burrowers who have so far come to light bring with them the worst pro-industry, anti-regulatory biases that have made this administration such a disaster.

At the Interior Department, six senior managers were brazenly burrowed as a package. One of the protected appointees was earlier criticized by the agency’s inspector general for overriding career experts in the field to deliver a posh grazing agreement to a Wyoming rancher. Another has survived in a management position affording clout to continue the scandalous mining industry bias of the Bush years.

Barack Obama the candidate smartly appealed to demoralized federal workers, writing campaign letters promising to reverse many of the Bush administration’s worst practices. Mr. Obama went on record for more mine-safety workers, tougher regulation of workplace safety, an end to censorship of research by government scientists and a rollback of the Bush administration’s outsourcing to favored private contractors.

The promises extend to such trouble spots as staff shortages that have created a shameful backlog in Social Security disability claims, and the push to eliminate the Environmental Protection Agency’s valuable library system. Mr. Obama also took care to warn that some agencies may face pruning because of merit or fiscal pressures.

It’s encouraging that the president-elect recognizes that to make the changes he’s promising — and deliver a government that will protect and help its citizens — he will need energized, rather than alienated, federal workers. His aides will have to circumvent or dump any Bush burrowers intent on sabotaging that effort.

[Cha]

1. Thanks! This is good to read this follow up on

the bush burrowing which automatically can't be good.

I like the sound of this..

"His aides will have to circumvent or dump any Bush burrowers intent on sabotaging that effort."