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

AUDIO-- Seymour Hersh: Cheney ‘Left A Stay Behind’ In Obama’s Government, Can ‘Still Control Policy Up To A Point’

By GottaLaff


I've been following Seymour Hersh forever, especially lately. No sense in stopping now.

So. You want to know what the Nation of Dick has been up to now? Yes? You may regret it:

[...] Hersh replied that though “a lot of people that had told me in the last year of Bush, ‘call me next, next February,’ not many people had talked to him. He implied that they were still scared of Cheney.

“Are you saying that you think Vice President Cheney is still having a chilling effect on people who might otherwise be coming forward,” asked [Terry] Gross. “I’ll make it worse,” answered Hersh, adding that he believes Cheney “put people back” in government to “stay behind” in order to “tell him what’s going on” and perhaps even “do sabotage”:

HERSH: I’ll make it worse. I think he’s put people left. He’s put people back. They call it a stay behind. It’s sort of an intelligence term of art. When you leave a country and, you know, you’ve driven out the, you know, you’ve lost the war. You leave people behind. It’s a stay behind that you can continue to contacts with, to do sabotage, whatever you want to do. Cheney’s left a stay behind. He’s got people in a lot of agencies that still tell him what’s going on. Particularly in defense, obviously. Also in the NSA, there’s still people that talk to him. He still knows what’s going on. Can he still control policy up to a point? Probably up to a point, a minor point. But he’s still there. He’s still a presence.

[...] In 2006, Robert Dreyfuss reported for The American Prospect that when Cheney helped staff the Bush administration in 2001, he put together a “corps of hard-line acolytes” that served “as his eyes and ears” in the federal bureaucracy. Former officials called them “Dick Cheney’s spies.”

Additionally, before leaving office, the Bush administration aggressively placed political appointees into permanent civil service positions as part of a process known as “burrowing.” [Laffy Note: My post on that here] Some of the burrowed former political appointees have close ties to Cheney, such as Jeffrey T. Salmon, who was a speechwriter for Cheney when he served as defense secretary. In July, he was named deputy director for resource management in the Energy Department’s Office of Science

Sy Hersh is about to appear on Countdown. No doubt I'll have another Hersh post coming up, including, at the very least, a video.

Bush loyalists trying to hinder Obama's agenda?

By GottaLaff

We've touched on this before, but now we've got an entire article-- with examples and everything!-- to draw from:

Some liberals are beginning to suspect Bush loyalists in career government positions are doing their best to try to deflate and hinder President Obama's agenda.

When the New York Times published a story on a former Guantanamo detainee who allegedly joined Al Qaeda in Yemen after his release, the timing struck Huffington Post reporter Sam Stein as "suspicious." The paper published its report just one day after President Obama ordered the prison closed. [...]

Thursday, Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) wrote Secretary of Defense Robert Gates, asking him to "immediately review the circumstances behind the conversion of these positions and the hiring of any former Bush administration appointees as career or temporary officials within the Office of Detainee Affairs."

"Allegations of improper 'burrowing' of political appointees to career positions are very troubling to me," wrote Sen. Feinstein. "This is especially disconcerting within the Office of Detainee Affairs due to the nature of the policy recommendations that office provides regarding Guantanamo." [...]

Stein is not the only media figure openly wondering whether Bush loyalists still in government would attempt to "send a signal," "undermine" or even "sabotage" President Obama.
When the Los Angeles Times reported that President Obama had preserved the use of renditions -- the secret capture, transportation and detention of suspected terrorists to foreign prisons in countries that cooperate with the U.S. -- for the CIA's anti-terror toolbox, many liberals were outraged.

However, some charged that the paper was "punked" by former CIA officials. MSNBC's Rachel Maddow wondered aloud if "Bush loyalists" who remain in government are trying to "undermine" President Obama.

Maddow's guest, Scott Horton, a contributing editor with Harpers magazine, agreed with her line of questioning, and even went so far as to say, "I think we may see sabotage as well."

Every trick in the book.

The ugly Bush stain: Burrowing edition

By GottaLaff

I hadn't planned on posting about another sulferous BushCo stinkbomb so soon, but it was unavoidable. Put on your gas masks:

With only 44 days left in office, President Bush continues to “burrow” people into government positions that will continue long after President-elect Obama is sworn in. “All told, Mr. Bush has made roughly 30 personnel moves since the November election, some in nominations that will require Senate approval, and others in direct appointments that will last well into President-elect Barack Obama’s term and beyond.” The New York Times reports that on Tuesday of last week alone, Bush hired 18 people for administration jobs.

On Tuesday. He hired 18 additional skunks to stink up our country in just one day.

Yet, unlike some of the contentious, late regulatory moves by the president, none of the appointments, and reappointments, have raised a peep of protest from the Democrats, Mr. Obama, or even the liberal interest groups that have so closely monitored his personnel decisions. [...]

For the last year or so, the majority leader, Senator Harry Reid of Nevada, has sought to keep the Senate in session to prevent such appointments. [...] But there are some areas of cooperation that would preclude the need for recess appointments. [For example, if the Dems support them] [...]

There are also appointments that require no Congressional approval but have terms that run for years. None of those have created much of a stir, either. [They may be bipartisan, or may not be binding] [...]

Mr. Fratto [Bush spokesperson] pointed out that Mr. Bush’s term is a full four years — not 3 years, 10 months and 4 days — and the president will not pull punches as he makes potentially still more appointments. “We actually do have not just the authority,” he said, “we have an obligation to do what we think is best for the country up until 11:59 a.m. on January 20.”

These are the kinds of noxious odors that nobody can blame on the First Dogs.