Captain's Quarters Blog


« The Most Irresponsible Editorial | Main | Will McCain Successfully Woo Conservatives? »

February 21, 2006
Backstabbers At State Unhappy With Changes

The Washington Post runs a report that shocks no one at all. The effort by Condoleezza Rice at the State Department to consolidate the bureaucracy and bring it into line with the policy of the elected government has created hard feelings among some of the rank and file careerists, who apparently liked their ability to ignore the chain of command and undermine appointees. Some of them have run to the Post and Glenn Kessler to complain about their treatment in the Rice regime:

A State Department reorganization of analysts involved in preventing the spread of deadly weapons has spawned internal turmoil, with more than half a dozen career employees alleging in interviews that political appointees sought to punish long-term employees whose views they considered suspect.

Senior State Department officials deny that and say an investigation has found that the proper personnel practices were followed. But three officials involved in the reorganization, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to comment publicly, acknowledge that a merger of two bureaus reduced the influence of employees who were viewed by some political appointees as disloyal to the administration's policies.

"There are a number of disgruntled employees who feel they have been shoved aside for political purposes. That's true," said one of these officials. "But there was rank insubordination on the part of these officers."

How rank was that insubordination? Previous management encouraged the careerists to bypass key political appointees designated to ensuring that the elected government's policies were carried out, allowing State to thumb their nose at the White House. Since the Administration has the ultimate responsibility for the performance of State, this situation was untenable. Even Kessler reports that the insubordination was reality:

"The suspicion is we would undermine the policy," said one of the officials who have felt sidelined. "That is what all of us find most offensive. We are here to serve any administration." ...

The employees who say that they have been targeted once had a back channel to then-Secretary of State Colin L. Powell and his deputy, Richard L. Armitage, who they said would on occasion ask them to bypass their superior, John R. Bolton, now the ambassador to the United Nations. Bolton, with backing from allies in the Pentagon and the vice president's office, frequently battled the rest of the State Department on policy issues.

State has always had its cadre of careerists whose outlook is that they run American foreign policy and not the elected President. It's been an example of the Washington bureaucracy for ages, and the Bush administration decided that it has gone on long enough. The President has a right to expect that his foreign-policy initiatives get implemented once so directed at State, and that the legitimate check on that authority resides with Congress and the American electorate, not a few self-important unaccountable apparatchiks at Foggy Bottom.

If he has to live with the consequences of the performance at State, then Bush has decided to make sure that the insubordination comes to a screeching halt. Rice has followed that policy and implemented it more quickly and efficiently than anyone predicted. If that makes the insubordinates unhappy and demoralized, that doesn't bother me a bit, and it shouldn't bother anyone else, either.

Sphere It Digg! View blog reactions
Posted by Ed Morrissey at February 21, 2006 6:06 AM

Trackback Pings

TrackBack URL for this entry is

Listed below are links to weblogs that reference Backstabbers At State Unhappy With Changes:

» Good Fun With Pointed Sticks from The Bernoulli Effect
John Bolton continues to act like someone who actually deserves the Nobel Peace Prize--he's doing his level best to get the criminally slothful UN to take effective action to stop the genocide in Darfur (hat tip: Logical Meme). From the... [Read More]

Tracked on February 22, 2006 12:11 AM

» Good Fun With Pointed Sticks from The Bernoulli Effect
John Bolton continues to act like someone who actually deserves the Nobel Peace Prize--he's doing his level best to get the criminally slothful UN to take effective action to stop the genocide in Darfur (hat tip: Logical Meme). From the... [Read More]

Tracked on February 22, 2006 12:14 AM

>Comments


Design & Skinning by:
m2 web studios





blog advertising



button1.jpg

Proud Ex-Pat Member of the Bear Flag League!