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Wednesday, April 04, 2007

Bush's "Fox-guarding-the-henhouse Personnel Plan"

In today's Washington Post, Ruth Marcus wrote a column deriding the Bush administration's "fox-guarding-the-henhouse personnel plan," in which friends of industry and GOP insiders are rewarded with powerful government jobs.

The column mentions Michael Baroody, the manufacturing industry lobbyist recently nominated to head the Consumer Product Safety Commission which regulates manufactured products. It also mentions Julie Macdonald, the Interior Department official who, as Reg•Watch blogged last week, interfered in agency science to meet political ends. The column does not mention Susan Dudley, whose industry ties did not stop President Bush from nominating her to be the White House's regulatory czar.

Marcus can't be faulted for not mentioning Dudley. After all, there isn't enough space on the Post op-ed page to list all the industry allies who have wound up in top administration posts. In the end, it is the whole that is greater than the some of its parts. As Marcus notes, the Bush philosophy is dangerously anti-government:

If your faith is more in the operations of the private sector than in the capacity of government, if you have scant commitment to the laws you are pledged to enforce, if you see government less as a trust to be administered than a force to be used for the benefit of political and ideological allies, then this kind of behavior is the inevitable result.

In short, if you identify so completely with the foxes, it's no wonder that you end up with a henhouse that is so thoroughly, tragically trashed.