Presidential Appointments

I’m not talking about the Supreme Court. I’ll leave that to your imagination. I’ve been thinking lately about all of the presidential appointments you never hear about, up and down the executive branch. Some you’ve heard of, some you haven’t.

Remember Monica Goodling? She was a young graduate of televangelist Pat Robertson’s Regent University Law School. She was appointed by the Bush administration to hire career people at the Justice Department. Not political appointees. Career people. Prosecutors and immigration judges. The people who don’t go away when the next administration comes in (as do US attorneys and other political appointees). It’s illegal to hire career people based on political leanings, campaign donations. Remember the famous line, "Why do you want to serve George W. Bush?" And my favorite: when an applicant stated that he admired Condoleezza Rice, she frowned in disapproval and said, "But she’s pro-choice." Entertaining, yes. But also illegal.

Philip A. Cooney, the chief of staff for the White House Council on Environmental Quality, removed or edited to downplay references to manmade global warming in scientific climate research documents. Cooney was an oil lobbyist with an economics degree, no training in environmental science whatsoever.

George C. Deutsch, appointed as a press aide in NASA’s public affairs office in Washington. He too had no scientific training. In the course of his job, Deutsch added the word "theory" to every mention of the Big Bang on NASA’s web site. A NASA scientist, Dr. James Hansen, along with others, complained of "intensifying efforts by political appointees in NASA, including Mr. Deutsch, to "control more closely his lectures and Web presentations." His resume credentials were never checked and it turned out that he had never graduated from college, so he had to resign.

I’m not writing this post to debate abortion rights or global warming or how the earth was made. My point is that the president gets to appoint a thousand nameless, faceless people who make all kinds of decisions for us – they are the people who run all of the departments. I don’t want another Chief Justice John Roberts, I don’t want another Michael Brown (FEMA), and I sure don’t want a thousand Monica Goodlings appointed in departments across the country. Well, John McCain has made his first appointment: Sarah Palin. Basically, Monica Goodling all over again. Except that Monica Goodling at least has a law degree. If you don’t want a thousand Monica Goodlings, don’t vote for John McCain.