Reminder from the George W. Era
In 2004, near the end of George W. Bush's first tern, my wife and I were among several dozen people being honored for volunteer work for a government agency that has major environmental responsibilities in the local community. It was more a social occasion, but like a number of other volunteers, we were receiving our ten year pins.
There had been concern that some staff changes had been made and that one of our favorite people was more or less being kicked upstairs and sideways into a research program that kept him away from environmental issues. Weirdly, his replacement spent twenty minutes "honoring" Ronald Reagan, who had passed away a couple of weeks earlier. This was the year the Bush Administration spent an entire month honoring the former president. I can't recall anything like this in my lifetime. The period of mourning was usually a week or less when a former president died.
It didn't take long to figure out what was going on. We already knew that the longer than usual "mourning" was being cynically used by Bush to distract from his many problems. It quickly became clear that our new manager was a Bush person and she was thoroughly pleased to be spending twenty minutes talking about Reagan. Many in the audience, including myself, found ourselves looking at one another.
It was clear the new manager was a political appointee and not someone who had earned her way up through management. To this day, I'm not sure how many people realize many of these low level appointees from the George W. Bush years are still in positions that they might not have earned otherwise. In addition, it is highly probable that some of these appointees were illegal. The early 2000s were a strange era. We are in serious danger of that era returning if voters don't start paying closer attention to the radical right.
Why do I mention this? Because many politicians and officials on the right are bending and sometimes breaking the law to get their way. Even the Supreme Court, with Scalia apparently leading the way, is coming up with rationales that haven't been seen in almost a century.
There had been concern that some staff changes had been made and that one of our favorite people was more or less being kicked upstairs and sideways into a research program that kept him away from environmental issues. Weirdly, his replacement spent twenty minutes "honoring" Ronald Reagan, who had passed away a couple of weeks earlier. This was the year the Bush Administration spent an entire month honoring the former president. I can't recall anything like this in my lifetime. The period of mourning was usually a week or less when a former president died.
It didn't take long to figure out what was going on. We already knew that the longer than usual "mourning" was being cynically used by Bush to distract from his many problems. It quickly became clear that our new manager was a Bush person and she was thoroughly pleased to be spending twenty minutes talking about Reagan. Many in the audience, including myself, found ourselves looking at one another.
It was clear the new manager was a political appointee and not someone who had earned her way up through management. To this day, I'm not sure how many people realize many of these low level appointees from the George W. Bush years are still in positions that they might not have earned otherwise. In addition, it is highly probable that some of these appointees were illegal. The early 2000s were a strange era. We are in serious danger of that era returning if voters don't start paying closer attention to the radical right.
Why do I mention this? Because many politicians and officials on the right are bending and sometimes breaking the law to get their way. Even the Supreme Court, with Scalia apparently leading the way, is coming up with rationales that haven't been seen in almost a century.
posted by Craig at 6:11 PM
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