Creeping Cronyism

Call my astrologer! There's some kind of cosmic convergence going on! For the second time in a week, I'm in full agreement with what right-wing commentator Michelle Malkin has to say about a very troubling development. That would be President Bush's recess appointment yesterday of Julie L. Myers to head the Department of Homeland Security's Bureau of Immigration and Customs Enforcement, a key agency in the War on Terror that has a long history of problems.

Malkin gets right to the point about the appointment, saying that

It sucks.

Well said, Michelle.

As recently as yesterday (See "Fallout From the Sago Mine Disaster"), I was bemoaning the Bush administration's penchant for appointing unqualified people to important government posts. Michael Brown, who disgraced himself magnificently as head of DHS's Federal Emergency Management Agency in (not) responding to Hurricane Katrina, is of course the poster boy for White House cronyism, but he has plenty of company.

(A recess appointment, for those of you who don't have your American political playbooks handy, is the appointment of someone to a high-ranking post while the Senate is in recess who normally would require Senate confirmation. The reason for the maneuver in Myers' case is obvious: Despite the Republican majority in the Senate, she was going to have tough time being approved and the process would have been long, bruising and possibly embarrasing to the White House. Yes, yes, Bill Clinton made recess appointments, too. Most presidents do.)

Myers is a former federal prosecutor and assistant Commerce secretary, neither of which give her the kind of experience to run a troubled agency with 15,000 employees and a $4 billion annual budget that is badly in need of reform.

However, Myers' cronyism connections are impeccible: She worked briefly as chief of staff to Michael Chertoff when he led the Justice Department's criminal division before he became Department of Homeland Security secretary. Her uncle is Air Force Gen. Richard B. Myers, the departing chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. And she married Chertoff's current chief of staff, John F. Wood, on Saturday.

Myers was on her honeymoon and not available for comment.