Oversight
Mike Brown resigned today. Think about that. How glaring do the failures have to be to prompt that fast a fall for a Bush political appointee?
But enough about Brown. The focus has for a few days been on how someone like Brown got appointed to such a high post without the proper vetting. Appointed, remember, on the heels of the Bernard Kerik fiasco, where Kerik had so obviously not been vetted at all because Rudy G. tabbed him for the job. You'd think, after all the headache that caused (though mostly for Rudy), they would have at least bothered to put the guy through a basic security clearance, or more scrutiny than the average large corporation gives an entry level employee. I'd be very upset if Mike Brown didn't even have to piss in a cup to be the head of FEMA.
(Actually, Brown's confirmation process was sort of screwed up. Read about it here. It's only in part a story about a lack of oversight; it is also about unintended consequences, beuaracracy, and a buch of other stuff that doesn't inspire much good feeling.)
This isn't just about the Bush Administration, though it mostly is. It's about the post-2000 GOP swelling with power, and the Democrats doing yeoman work in getting out of their way. Oversite just seems to have gone out the window in a few areas of government, and despite what the tax freaks might tell you, there are times when you do need a government. Sometimes, you need it to work very well and in uncertain times.
With a lack of oversite comes some nasty surprises. People start to appear in places where before they wouldn't have. Oil people start to run our energy policy, for example. Or people who used to work for polluters and fight EPA policy suddenly are in charge at EPA. Homeless people run HUD. That kind of thing. Paul Krugman pretty much cuts to it today: How many organizations are there like FEMA, where the people in charge have no clue what they are doing, but are simply there due to political circumstances? The exodus of talent from so many areas of government is alarming. These are the people who actually do the work, and somebody eventually has to answer the tough questions. In many agencies, there are only a finite number of people who really have the answers, history or authority necessary to make things happen. The organizational structure can fall apart with a suprisingly small number of vacancies, and you just can't replace experience. I can't emphasize this enough. Those organizations, any organization, is only as good as the abilities of its people, and when all of your talent starts leaving in droves because the people in charge don't understand what they do, it causes problems.
I know from personal experience how large a problem brain drain is at the government level. Companies have an economic incentive to cultivate new talent and replace older talent. Government agencies do not.
5:46:35 PM 
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