[greenyes] Mr. Bush's Crony Appointments

["Peter Anderson" <anderson@no.address>]

NYTIMES - September 12, 2005
All the President's Friends
By PAUL KRUGMAN
The lethally inept response to Hurricane Katrina revealed to everyone that 
the Federal Emergency Management Agency, which earned universal praise 
during the Clinton years, is a shell of its former self. The hapless Michael 
Brown - who is no longer overseeing relief efforts but still heads the 
agency - has become a symbol of cronyism.
But what we really should be asking is whether FEMA's decline and fall is 
unique, or part of a larger pattern. What other government functions have 
been crippled by politicization, cronyism and/or the departure of 
experienced professionals? How many FEMA's are there?
Unfortunately, it's easy to find other agencies suffering from some version 
of the FEMA syndrome.
The first example won't surprise you: the Environmental Protection Agency, 
which has a key role to play in Hurricane Katrina's aftermath, but which has 
seen a major exodus of experienced officials over the past few years. In 
particular, senior officials have left in protest over what they say is the 
Bush administration's unwillingness to enforce environmental law.
Yesterday The Independent, the British newspaper, published an interview 
about the environmental aftermath of Katrina with Hugh Kaufman, a senior 
policy analyst in the agency's Office of Solid Waste and Emergency Response, 
whom one suspects is planning to join the exodus. "The budget has been cut," 
he said, "and inept political hacks have been put in key positions." That 
sounds familiar, and given what we've learned over the last two weeks 
there's no reason to doubt that characterization - or to disregard his 
warning of an environmental cover-up in progress.
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FOR FULL ARTICLE 
http://nytimes.com/2005/09/12/opinion/12krugman.html?hp=&pagewanted=print
_________________________
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