Bad Appointments Posted by: Dale Franks
on Tuesday, September 20, 2005
You'd think the Bush Administration would learn. It's only been a week since the administration was on the grill over the apparent incompetence of FEMA director Michael Brown, whose qualifications to run FEMA seem, in retrospect, to have lacked some important experience. Mr. Brown, of course, is now "seeking other opportunities" in the private sector.
Now, the administration has nominated Julie Myers to head the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency. A brief review of her resume indicates very little managerial, law enforcement, or customs experience.
After working as a federal prosecutor in Brooklyn, N.Y., for two years, Myers held a variety of jobs over the past four years at the White House and at the departments of Commerce, Justice and Treasury, though none involved managing a large bureaucracy. Myers worked briefly as chief of staff to Michael Chertoff when he led the Justice Department's criminal division before he became Homeland Security secretary.
Myers also was an associate under independent counsel Kenneth W. Starr for about 16 months and has most recently served as a special assistant to President Bush handling personnel issues.
On the other hand, she does appear to have the requisite political qualifications.
Her uncle is Air Force Gen. Richard B. Myers, the departing chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. She married Chertoff's current chief of staff, John F. Wood, on Saturday.
So, the head of ICE, and by virtue of that position, one of the key people in preventing domestic terrorism attacks—will be a woman whose selection seems to be the result of political hackery, rather than any demonstrated competence in immigration or customs or their assocated law enforcement activities.
See, this is the kind of thing that makes me glad we limit presidents to two terms.
UPDATE [Jon Henke]
Dale may be glad Bush can't serve more than two terms, but I'm starting to wish we could replace him earlier than that. The appointment of Michael Brown was bad enough. You'd think that would be the exception, but—as Dale notes above—you'd be wrong.
Meanwhile, the cronyism isn't just limited to important areas of national security. The Washington Post reports that "the Office of Women's Health of the Food and Drug Administration sent an e-mail notice to women's groups and others announcing the appointment of Norris Alderson as its new acting director".
Norris Alderson is a veterinarian.
Three days later, the FDA appointed somebody else and an FDA spokesperson claimed "that Alderson had never been appointed acting director", and that "her office knew nothing about the statement regarding Alderson". They may have claimed ignorance, but Google knows. A since-changed version of the FDA page lists "Dr. Norris Alderson Acting Director, Office of Women's Health". A google search still shows the old page.
Oh, and the former "head of procurement policy at the Office of Management and Budget"—David H. Safavian—was "arrested Monday on charges of lying to investigators and obstructing a federal inquiry involving Jack Abramoff".
Incidentally, you know that $200 billion we're about to spend in New Orleans? Well, Safavian "had recently been working on developing contracting policies for the multibillion-dollar relief effort after Hurricane Katrina". Oh, and his wife "is chief counsel for oversight and investigations on the House Government Reform Committee, which is responsible for overseeing government procurement and is, among other things, expected to conduct the Congressional investigation into missteps after Hurricane Katrina."
Well, that's just lovely. And, by "lovely", I mean "corrupt".
Any political appointee now must know that they are going to lose their job in 3 years, is there an incentive to do the job well knowing they are going to fire you and bring in a new guy who will blame every mistake he makes on you? Is the president going to be riding these guys hard if he knows he does not need to run a tight ship as he is not going to be seeking election?
Hey, this would be a good opportunity for the Democrats to rationally criticize a Bush appointee. They could take their jobs seriously for once, lay out their non-partisan concerns ("you were nominated by a Republican" doesn’t count), refuse to confirm, and actually look like responsible opposition in the process.
I know they’d gain a lot of my respect if they did this.
And why be critical until you actually see the job performance?
Oh, I don’t know...maybe because failing to secure our borders will lead to a monumental disaster? But hey, I guess we should wait until the disaster happens and then complain about what we could’ve done better.
Or are you planning on being like the Democrats....critical no matter what she does?
Or we could be like you and faithfully accept everything Bush does.
Isn’t the point that we can find people who already have experience for these top jobs instead of giving them to political friends?
And why be critical until you actually see the job performance?
Are you serious, Bithead? Are you really, seriously suggesting that experience shouldn’t be a factor? Are you actually suggesting that we can’t evaluate the qualifications of a person until after they’ve done the job?
Because that is just—let’s be blunt—idiotic.
We’re critical of Myers appointment for the same reason we expect our heart surgeon to be a credible Doctor. We don’t turn over vitally important jobs to completely unqualified people. Or rather, we shouldn’t.
Oh, I do agree; failure is not an option. However, consider the rate of failure of the supposedly experienced types, that have had that authority. Not too appealing, eh?
Let’s double clutch this so there’s no misreading me;
I’m simply stating that, as has been blogged, in several places for some time now, (including here and at Michelle’s) the supposedly ’experienced’ people haven’t been doing all that great a job, in recent memory. Indeed, I find it hard to imagine anyone with half a brain doing a worse job at it, for the last 12 years or so.
(So much for my agreeing with everything Bush does, on the subject, hmm?)
I’m suggesting that in this field, given the publicly logged poor performance of the supposedly experienced, perhaps experience shouldn’t be the final arbitor.
(sigh) No, "experience" is not the end-all and be-all of qualifications. But the response to "we’ve not been doing well enough" is not "so let’s appoint people with even less experience!"
The failure rate in human heart surgery is not trivial, either, but we don’t let veterinarians take a whack at it for a change of pace. Though, apparently, we do appoint them to head the FDA Office of Women’s Health. Because, you know, horse uterus...human uterus. What’s the dif?
JWG, et. al—you are saying: "We don’t turn over vitally important jobs to completely unqualified people. Or rather, we shouldn’t."
I direct your attention to the appointment of George Washington as Commander-in-Chief of the struggling Continental Army. Not only had he never commanded an army or lead any sort of military unit into battle, but the few military excursions of his experience were all failures. I think I could give you 10,000 similar examples from the highest levels of government right on down to the manager of my local grocery store. Moreover, you are over looking an important political consideration. Except for Cabinet level positions, aren’t the main qualifications of political appointees “connections?” Don’t we all know that the “real” and “critical” roles in these agencies are at least one level down.?
Not only had he never commanded an army or lead any sort of military unit into battle, but the few military excursions of his experience were all failures.
Err...what history books have you been reading? George Washington commanded troops and faced battle before the Revolutionary War, and they were not all failures. Would you care to cite a source for this claim?
Every President is the Commander-In-Chief of the Armed Forces. We don’t limit ourselves to prior military for that position, do we?
One of the supposed good things about a bureaucracy (I cannot spell that damned word...) is that it supposed to be able to handle problems at the lowest possible level that have already been solved, no matter who’s at the top of the pyramid. Of course, it won’t do anything else unless someone at the top pushes really, really hard.
Every President is the Commander-In-Chief of the Armed Forces. We don’t limit ourselves to prior military for that position, do we?
We don’t because the law says we can’t. His or her resume is reviewed through the ballot box.
However, every job comes with at least minimal requirements, whether acknowledged or not, for the experience necessary to do the job competently. Knowing the President isn’t enough.
Bureaucracies are hard to move. They usually do the mundane well but change is resisted and they are risk averse.
To make meaningful changes, its more than helpful to have the experience necessary to recognize the problems inherent in specific bureaucracies if you plan on improving them. This lady has no idea of where the problems are or how to change the bureaucracy because she has no experience in the areas encompassed by ICE. She’ll be another in a long line of figurehead "directors" who learn on the job how it all "works" from the very bureaucrats who’ve gotten it in the shape it is now.
And why be critical until you actually see the job performance?
Or are you planning on being like the Democrats....critical no matter what she does?
I don’t think anyone will claim Rod Dreher over at NRO’s "The Corner" is "being like a Democrat" when he says:
I don’t at all get this attitude among many on the right that our sworn duty is to back anything President Bush and the GOP choose to do. We are conservatives before we are Republicans, are we not? Facts are better than dreams, and the fact is, the president is acting like the second coming of Lyndon B. Johnson with his spending proposals on Katrina thing, and it is past time for the grassroots to have hit the wall on the spendthrift Republican president and the spendthrift Republican Congress. What is the point of electing Republicans if they’re going to spend worse than Democrats? Moreover, I’m absolutely with Michelle Malkin on this outrageous Bush cronyism regarding the new Immigration and Customs Enforcement chief over at the Department of Homeland Security. I find it impossible to believe that this administration or their GOP Congressional enablers care about enforcing the immigration laws of this country. And I find it impossible to believe that this doesn’t matter. A lot.
Q: How much of this is Bush cronyism and how much of this is endemic to the system?
I am more than willing to believe that cronyism is responsible for the appointment of a lot of folks, and am convinced that imcopetence is the main failing of the administration as a whole. So I don’t have any interest in making excuses for Bush & co.
But I am just curious about how much this is a systemic vs. unique problem. In civics class we learned that one part of winning an election is that in terms of political appointments, "to the victor go the spoils".
Katrina seems to be an example of "the perfect storm" of incompetent leadership due to political cronyism matched with systemic failures (bureaucracy up the wazzoo which nearly pre-determined an inadequate response without brilliant leadership - and maybe even then). I suspect that this is another example.
Is this is not simply par for the political course? We are just noticing because we’ve got the microscope on appointments because of Brown?
THe comparison to Brown is an apt one, though perhaps not in the way intended.
As has been pointed out repeatedly here and elsewhere, Fema’s response to NOLA was if anything above average in speed and well above average in scope.
The complaints about Brown’s performance are unfounded, in general, but most particularly as regards his qualifications for the task. Given the quite satisfactory response of Fema to similar, if smaller, problems in Florida, etc, he seems to have been qualified for the task at hand.
Suddenly, we’re all-fired worried about what kind of experience Brown had. Doing the job well in those previous situations doesn’t count?
Forgive me, but this Meyers thing seems more of the same nonsense.
And, for the record, I’ve already stated publicly I am disappointed with Michelle Malikn on this matter.
It should be officially noticed, along with all this appropriate criticism of this appointment, that the Democrats have squandered their credibility by crying “wolf” for purely political reasons on so many appointments. How is one to know when their criticism is the real “advise and consent” intended by the Constitution, and the partisan bs we have been subjected to, lo these many months? They are reaping what they have sown (and other clichés) and now are forced to say, in so many words: “Yes, but now we really mean it.” What a joke of an opposition party. And we have yet to hear from Ted Kennedy and Howard Dean. I can’t wait.
Maybe I can take both sides on this issue. Qualifications are important and experience is one of those qualifications.
However, Bithead has a point, the question is does it apply in this case? For all I know people in close contact with her have watched her work in other areas, seen her act and display knowledge in ways that might make her extremely qualified for the role they forsee her filling in the position to which they are appointing her. Qualifications can show up in ways that are not easily shown on a simple resume. The question at hand is does she have those qualities that might make her effective despite the lack of easily pointed to qualifications? We don’t know. One hopes that the administration can be trusted to make those judgements. I don’t necessarily see that in this administration whether the nominees have experience and obvious credentials or not.
Lest bithead assume that is a partisan slam, I haven’t seen evidence of that in any administration, including Bill Clinton’s, Janet Reno being the standard bearer for critically placed incompetence. Of course her resume was thinner than thin so take that as you will.
Cronyism as an end in itself is a bad thing, however crony’s are known entities which is why every administration turns to them. If the previous admninistration were in all instances looking for the most qualified (in the formal sense of the word) person in the US for every position, please explain the vastly disproportionate numbers of people working there from a few select places such as Arkansas! Love the state myself, but not necessarily a place one would expect to find so many top people if for no other reason than it has so few people to begin with. Personal knowledge often trumps credentials for the obvious reason that credentialed people are often poor at what they do, how is someone to know if that is true? Instead they turn to someone they know and trust to figure such things out for them, also known as a crony.
Maybe this is a bad appointment, but I suggest we don’t really know yet, though I am very concerned myself. The record doesn’t inspire confidence.
Lest bithead assume that is a partisan slam, I haven’t seen evidence of that in any administration, including Bill Clinton’s, Janet Reno being the standard bearer for critically placed incompetence.
Correct. It seems you’re understanding what lies under the surface of my argument.
SOmething to consider; If I’m not mistaken, I think it was Lord Acton who suggested that the question is not is one class or another fit or unfit to govern... they ALL are unfit. And really when we start rattling on about ’experience’ as a guide, we’re really talking about class against Class... and that to me seems a particularly lame argument to bring, particulalry for a libertarian. The question that needs to be applied is not is the person experienced, but rather, can they do the job? And as you suggest, the WH seems to have answered that question. We elected Mr. Bush because like it or not, his judgement seemed the best of the two alternatives.
And, anwyay....If you think on it, we seem to find some rather unlikely leaders in history..., in unlikely places, over time... their qualifications going in, or more corerctly, their lack, not withstanding.
OTOH, we;ve seem some sure fire appointments go bad, too... in the USSC for example, we’ve had sure fire conservatives turn into Marx as they were putting on the robe, for pity’s sake.
Am I concerned about Meyers? Well, no... no more than I would be any other appointment. But, then again, that’s mostly because the performance of the more experinced types has been so abysmal that someone new to the role couldn’t be a great deal worse, and given recent history seems to me to stand a better chance of what I would call succeess. But like any other appointment, we’ll have to wait and see, won’t we?
It should be officially noticed, along with all this appropriate criticism of this appointment, that the Democrats have squandered their credibility by crying "wolf" for purely political reasons on so many appointments
It should be officially noted as well that we aren’t Democrats.
And apparently the Senior Associate Commissioner for Science of the FDA’s Office of Science and Communication. He’s spent most of his career as Director of the Office of Research within the Center for Veterinary Medicine. I’m not certain this appointment is as stupid as it is made to be; the search function within the FDA web site works quite well for any who are curious.
And apparently the Senior Associate Commissioner for Science of the FDA’s Office of Science and Communication.
Well, that’s great and all, and I never intended to impugn his scientific know-how, but that hardly makes him the top candidate for a Department focused on Women’s Health. I mean, if you’re going to have departments that focus on particular branches of science, it seems like you’d want to staff them with the top people in that field.
Despite their qualifications, we didn’t appoint the World’s Greatest Doctor of Medicine to head the Manhattan Project. We preferred somebody with experience in, you know, physics.
And, as long as we’re on the subject, the Commissioner of the FDA is a Veterinarian, too. He, at least, seems to have a background that fits well with his department, though. (an emphasis in pharmacology, physiology and food safety )
I direct your attention to the appointment of George Washington as Commander-in-Chief of the struggling Continental Army. Not only had he never commanded an army or lead any sort of military unit into battle, but the few military excursions of his experience were all failures.
Ahem: 1/ You can’t have "few" military excursions, if you’ve "never" led any sort of military unit into battle. So your story isn’t consistent, even within one sentence. 2/ In the French & Indian Wars, George Washington led British Colonial troops, in red coats, into battle, in western Pennsylvania, and successfully ambushed a French unit, commanded by Col. Jumonville, near Uniontown PA. He also built Fort Necessity, but I don’t remember whether he ever had to defend it. He had field experience and combat experience, not sure how much. But any is more than none, so you’re still wrong.
JWG
Or we could be like you and faithfully accept everything Bush does.
There’s blogs where that happens but this ain’t one of them. So if that’s what you’re looking for, you should keep looking.
Well, that’s great and all, and I never intended to impugn his scientific know-how, but that hardly makes him the top candidate for a Department focused on Women’s Health. I mean, if you’re going to have departments that focus on particular branches of science, it seems like you’d want to staff them with the top people in that field.
Jon, sorry to have to tell you this, but, you’re heading for big trouble with that argument.
The point you’re missing is the difference between book smart and street smart.
Example; As you know, I work in IT support, and have for 20 years, now. One of the best administrators I’ve ever worked for in the field, couldn’t install W2K3 Server correctly, if his very life depended on it. I know... I’ve seen him try. But there’s nobody I’d want more, representing me to a board of directors about a problem. There’s a vast difference, you see, between technical ability in a chosen field, and the ability to be a good administrator over people who work in it.
The positions you’re arguing about are administrative in nature, with more than a touch of public relations... and certainly not technical at the same level a field operative would deal with, and therefore those positions do not require the level of nuts and bolts expertise that, a front liner would need. Indeed, administrators are often better without such understanding.
They do however, require administrative ability. So, in the case of Meyers, the question becomes, would this candidate be a good administrator?
And, how do you know, McQ? HAve YOU interviewed the woman?
Oh, I SEE.
Face it; your bitch is Bush didn’t appoint a governmental professional... more of the same as we;ve had... (an interesting problem for a libertarian to have) and exactly what’s been working so badly for us in the role.
It’ll be interesting to revisit this conversation in a year. If she screws up, I’ll admit it. But what will you say, if she does as well as I suspect she will?
your bitch is Bush didn’t appoint a governmental professional
I don’t understand how you come to this conclusion when part of the original post contained the fact that she has spent time in the departments of Commerce, Justice, and Treasury. It was pretty clear that the complaint is that she does not seem to have very good qualifications for this particular job other than her personal connections.
But how is that clear? As has been suggested before; do you get all the qualities of a person from tgheir supposed resume? Trust me; I’ve hired and fired many over the years whose resume didn’t begin to approach how good or bad someone was for the task I had to hand.
Let’s break it down a bit;
Leader?
Nope.
Leadership is a personal quality, not somehting one can instill by training. So, based on a resume how can you make such judgements?
Understands the problems of the present bureaucracy?
Nope.
I know of damned few lawyers who don’t understand such matters. SHe’s a lawyer, and by all accounts, a fairly good one.
Has the experience to change it to the better?
Nope.
Ah, yes. Experience has served us so well in the past, hasn’t it?
Leadership is a personal quality, not somehting one can instill by training.
Not true. I helped instill it for 28 years and we have "leadership schools" all over the army.
I suggest the people you got, already had the underlying drives and thought processes to be a leader. What you did with them was to hone that skill, and doubtless you did it well. But I’m willing to bet that not everyone made it through such training. Nor did everyone qualify for even geting into said training.
Certainly, you can hone the skill once it’s there. But it’s gotta BE there first.
And of late say, the last 40 years or so...the good performance among the experienced government types has been the exception, not the rule.
And that has what to do with the specific problems within the ICE bureaucracy?
Bureaucracy is a universal illness, I’m afraid, and the names change, but the player types don’t. nich was your stated goal, wasn’t it?
Understanding it and getting along with it is tatamount to ecouaraging it’s fostering, and becoming a part of the problem, rather than cutting through it.... the latter of which I was given to understand to be your stated goal. Which is why I keep saying ’more of the same’.
As for her being able to do my job, no. Then again, neither could my boss, though I expect she could do my Boss’ job... I’m not an administrator, ya see. I’m on the front line. The position under discussion here is that of an administrator, not a front line type.
As has been suggested before; do you get all the qualities of a person from tgheir supposed resume?
This seems to suggest that you agree that her credentials aren’t very impressive for this position. Are you giving her the benefit of the doubt because she was chosen by the Bush administration or because you will give anyone the benefit of the doubt?
By how such things have been measured in the past, no.
Then again, I don’t consider those methods at all valid, given the quality of the work we’ve seen from people whose history passed such tests with flying colors.
And just for the record... when I started in my current job as an IT support person, my only history was 15 years as a DJ, and, no formal training, whatever was on my record at all. My resume was pretty bad, abysmal, in fact, in terms of breaking into the new field.
There must have been some quality there that was not on my resume, or my work record, huh?
I think Bithead’s pretty much right. If there’s a guy out there who knows how to solve our serious border problems then I want him out in the field working on just that. Not stuck in every routine meeting, signing papers, and gladhanding. Which are what high-level administrators really do most of the time. Those things must be done, but preferably not by the people who’s skills and knowledge are really needed elsewhere. Good administrators exist to handle the mundane details so their experts don’t have to, to help coordinate resources, and to communicate everyone’s distilled expertise to outsiders.
Besides, any expert you put into an admin position almost immediately begins to stagnate in their former field. It’s just about inevitable. Some successfuly adapt, learning to rely on trusted employees to make up for gradually losing their practical know-how. Others can’t adapt and turn into disruptive micromanagers, or drift back to their previous duties and neglect the boring administrative parts of their job.
I suggest the people you got, already had the underlying drives and thought processes to be a leader.
Really? Who identified them, then, and how? And weren’t they sent forward because they met certain requirements or qualifications?
What you did with them was to hone that skill, and doubtless you did it well. But I’m willing to bet that not everyone made it through such training. Nor did everyone qualify for even geting into said training.
That’s correct, but they all met MINIMUM requirements and qualifications before they were selected.
Tell me, other than being a friend of Bush’s and a neice of the Chairman of the JCS, what qualifications does Meyers bring to her job as the director of ICE?
Field experience? Experience within the department at any level and in any job? Any understanding of how the department works?
Even she’s admitted she has no experience.
Certainly, you can hone the skill once it’s there. But it’s gotta BE there first.
That may be, but none of these people I trained showed up to be the chief of the leadership department either. The chief of said department had been doing leadership training for YEARS.
It’s called relevant experience.
Bureaucracy is a universal illness, I’m afraid, and the names change, but the player types don’t. nich was your stated goal, wasn’t it? Understanding it and getting along with it is tatamount to ecouaraging it’s fostering, and becoming a part of the problem, rather than cutting through it.... the latter of which I was given to understand to be your stated goal. Which is why I keep saying ’more of the same’.
What suggests she has the ability to "cut through it" when its apparent she doesn’t even know what they really do or how they do it? She’s the one saying she’ll "learn" from the older hands there.
You don’t need your "leader" LEARNING their job on the job. That’s not leading. And who’s she going to learn from? Those now running the dysfunctional bureaucracy? Oh that ought be efficient.
As for her being able to do my job, no. Then again, neither could my boss, though I expect she could do my Boss’ job... I’m not an administrator, ya see. I’m on the front line. The position under discussion here is that of an administrator, not a front line type.
And we’re back to where we started.
An administrator is a bureaucrat. And bureaucrats don’t fix broken bureaucracies. She’s been charged with doing that.
So how can she with no understanding of how this particular department works, no experience within the department and certainly nothing which particularly recommends her for the job?
Bryan:
Good administrators exist to handle the mundane details so their experts don’t have to, to help coordinate resources, and to communicate everyone’s distilled expertise to outsiders.
Read the article. The bureaucracy is broken. They’re looking for someone to fix it. That’s more than an "administrator’s" job regardless of the job title.
She has no credentials or experience which point to her being capable of doing what is expected. Its a cronyism appointment, plain and simple.
You guys may find that acceptable and may be satisfied to see ICE keep being the dysfuctional department it is presently.
I don’t find it acceptable and I’m not satisfied to see it remain broken. And I’m damned tired of the cronyism which perpetuates such inefficiency.
I suggest the people you got, already had the underlying drives and thought processes to be a leader.
Really? Who identified them, then, and how?
Drive, mostly. A goodly amount of drive will overcome a great many other ills in terms of the individual’s success. It’s kinda like the concept of original sin; Ya gotta WANNA.
You don’t need your "leader" LEARNING their job on the job
And there’s the rub. A leader who stops learning their job while on the job, isn’t much of a leader. And someone calling themselves an expert... particulalry in a government role has usually closed their mind and stopped learning. As we have been shown for many years, now... and this is exactly what I’ve been talking about.
Sadly, many never see it for what it is.
And who’s she going to learn from? Those now running the dysfunctional bureaucracy? Oh that ought be efficient.
Tell me, Bruce... When an military officer is shipped in out of the blue and put in charge if a unit, don’t they rely on the people under them to know and do their jobs, and play the roles that have been assigned them? Each officer has special talents. How is this new commander to know this, without the people under him... you’ll pardon me... teaching them?
What suggests she has the ability to "cut through it" when its apparent she doesn’t even know what they really do or how they do it? She’s the one saying she’ll "learn" from the older hands there.
And this answer contines with the same metaphor as the previous one. The new commander has the ability, after a short time, to see BS for what it is, and cut through it, as oposed to simply becoming part of the problem. New broom, and all that. That’s the quality I suspect is being sought here... a quality Bush’s people obviously saw.
suggest the people you got, already had the underlying drives and thought processes to be a leader.
Really? Who identified them, then, and how?
Addendum:
I should have added to my previous answer; Why, they identified themselves. THey stood up, and took on the task. They decided to go into the military, and then decided to go in for the training. It does take a certain type of person... replete with leadership qualities to even get THAT far, after all.
