Pork and Patronage

Here in the blogosphere, Glenn Reynolds of Instapundit has joined forces with NZ Bear of The Truth Laid Bear, among others, to identify Federal spending projects that are worth cutting on the Hill, to make funding available for recovery from Katrina. This might appear as a local problem confined to the New Orleans area, until you consider that the mouth of the Mississippi Delta is the USA's busiest inland port.

Meanwhile, Michelle Malkin, syndicated columnist and Filipina-American Jersey Girl, sheds light on a perennial issue with this administration, granting top political appointments to people who are blatantly unqualified. The biggest case in point is the latest nominee to head Immigration and Customs Enforcement, part of the Department of Homeland Security. Quoting the Washington Post: "The Bush administration is seeking to appoint a lawyer with little immigration or customs experience to head the troubled law enforcement agency that handles those issues, prompting sharp criticism from some employee groups, immigration advocates and homeland security experts..." As if the previous head of FEMA wasn't enough of a wake-up call.

This is not unusual for an administration to have a "reward my buddy" program, and this writer has been watching it from the inside for years. It's bad enough when it's confined to the political ranks of a Federal agency; the long term effect is when it trickles down to the ranks of middle- and top-level career management. It can be even worse in the "turkey farms," a local term for those less glamorous agencies where some Important Political Contributor's nephew is likely to end up. After all, someone owes someone a favor, and you gotta stick 'em somewhere, don't ya???

A few go on to be head waiters in some of Washington's finest restaurants.

Oh, the stories I could tell...