Fox-in-the-henhouse Government

By Scott Horton

Writing in the Washington Post, Ruth Marcus says that three hurricane-force scandals (health care at Walter Reed, the U.S. attorneys scandal, and the Scooter Libby case) have overwhelmed many stories that allow for a deeper characterization of the current administration.

These episodes illustrate the administration's fox-guarding-the-henhouse personnel plan, the disdain of its appointees for the laws they are sworn to enforce and their spoils-of-war attitude toward the government they are entrusted with overseeing:

• The president's amazing-even-for-this-crowd choice to oversee the federal family planning program, Eric Keroack, resigned after Medicaid officials in Massachusetts, where he had a private medical practice, questioned his billings. Keroack's suitability for the family planning post, in which he was responsible for overseeing the distribution of contraceptives to low-income women? He was director of a group that finds contraception “demeaning to women” and won't distribute it—even to married women.
• President Bush nominated Michael Baroody, a top official at the National Association of Manufacturers, to head the Consumer Product Safety Commission -- the agency charged with protecting consumers against the dangerous products of, yes, manufacturers. . .

Marcus goes on to identify several more questionable appointments (see also Ken Silverstein's piece on “Revolvers”); she also acknowledges that there are many conscientious, hard-working conservatives in this administration who don't deserve to be tarred. Nevertheless, she sees a connection between this pervasive problem and the ideology behind the Bush 43 administration: “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.”