Undoing BushCo: Strike against politicization of government by Obama administration

By GottaLaff

For now at least, say buh-bye to "burrowing":

In what may be another small dose of that precious change we can believe in, the Obama administration is taking steps to crack down on one of the Bushies' favored tactics for politicizing government: burrowing.

In the waning days of the Bush administration, we told you about some political appointees who had landed career jobs, with civil-service protections, at their departments -- allowing them to continue to exert influence under the new government, and making them difficult to remove. [...]

[S]tarting January 1, his office will have to sign off every time a political appointee who was appointed during the last 5 years is hired for a career position. Right now, OPM approval is only required during a presidential election year.

Paul Light, an expert on the federal bureaucracy at the Brookings Institution:

... [B]ecause the Obama administration, when it leaves office, will inevitably want to burrow its own appointees into career jobs, "they will rue the day they did this."

For now, though, count this as a strike against the politicization of government that the Bushies raised to an art form.

Chipping away at the toxic BushCo stains. That is change we can believe in.

H/t: muttlikemeblog