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It didn't take long for the whole "governmentwide civil service reform now!" movement to start running out of steam. Having put the issue on the agenda with its front-page treatment last week of the news about DHS' new system and the possibility that it will be used as a blueprint for full-scale reform, the Post opines today that the DHS approach leaves much to be desired. And the GOP moderates on Capitol Hill who call the shots when it comes to things like federal personnel reform are stepping out smartly to throw cold water on the idea of a governmentwide overhaul this year. OMB's Clay Johnson may want to think twice before treading into this territory. At the very least, he'll have to endure the wrath of the federal workforce. Want a little preview? Read here and here.

The recent news about the collapse of the FBI's Virtual Case File project has once again thrown the spotlight on federal agencies' abysmal record with respect to large-scale information technology efforts. I think this situation is about to attract the attention of members of Congress in a big way. As the federal budget gets tighter and tighter, the patience with spending hundreds of millions of dollars on IT upgrades that don't work will get thinner and thinner. But don't expect much to come out of the heightened concern, for several reasons:

• Agencies have big problems accomplishing their missions, and it's always tempting to look to solve them with big IT projects.


• These projects provide lots of money to huge federal contractors.


• It's not just the government that has trouble pulling off such mega-projects. Corporations mess them up all the time. They just don't get the scrutiny of congressional committees when they do. Upgrading IT infrastructure is just a messy process--always has been, always will be.

Is anyone else shocked that the Post gave the story of Homeland Security's new personnel system the front-page banner headline treatment? Goodness gracious, they're acting as though this is a huge development that could affect the lives of thousands of their readers. Oh wait, it is.

Warren "Rusty" Asher of the Office of Personnel Management's communications office was found dead last week in his Washington apartment. I didn't know Rusty personally, only having talked to him on the phone a couple of times. But what I heard from our reporters on a regular basis was that Rusty was an invaluable, unflappable, and always-available resource to members of the media. We in journalism can be awfully demanding, and making an impression on us with one's helpfulness and cheerfulness as a press officer is no mean feat. The local police, with the help of the FBI, are investigating Rusty's death. Here's hoping they can provide some answers that will give solace to Rusty's family, friends and coworkers. I know that those of us who deal with OPM and other federal agencies on a daily basis already miss him.

I've got C-SPAN on in my office, and they're showing a debate on the House floor. I am once again astonished by how much time the leaders of the House spend merely trying to get members to be quiet so debate can begin. For the past several minutes, all C-SPAN is showing is members milling about obliviously while a gavel sounds and a voice sonorously (and, eventually, exasperatedly) declares, "Please suspend your conversations or remove them from the floor," over and over again. When members do finally quiet down, it only lasts for a couple of minutes before the din rises again. I know that only dorks like me actually watch House debates, but I sometimes wonder if members give any thought at all to the way they look to the American public as they go about their daily business.

Today's Wall Street Journal features a front-page takeout on how rising costs of health care coverage and other benefits for military retirees is exerting tremendous pressure on the Defense budget. Not to toot our own horn or anything, but GovExec's Katherine Peters warned in a piece more than three years ago that the move to boost health benefits for military retirees was about to swamp the Pentagon financially.

It's always nice to see lame-duck Cabinet secretaries loosen up a little bit and start telling it like it is. Tom Ridge acknowledged in a USA Today interview Monday that while the intelligence overhaul bill President Bush signed late last year called for adding new Border Patrol agents at the rate of 2,000 a year for five years, the administration isn't going to designate enough funds in its budget to reach that goal. Grand plans like dramatically beefing up the border presence make for great soundbites, but in reality they require tradeoffs that people usually aren't willing to make--and sometimes with good reason. "It's nice to say you're going to have 10,000 more Border Patrol agents in five years," Ridge told USA Today. "But what other part of Homeland Security do you want to take the money from?"

Would you take a Cabinet job if it meant your brother had to get fired to clear the way for you? According to Steve Barr's column in the Post today, VA Secretary-designate Jim Nicholson would.

I just started reading Graham Allison's book, Nuclear Terrorism, and came across this chilling statement from Suleiman Abu Gheith, Osama bin Laden's spokesman, issued nine months after 9/11:

What happened to America is something natural, an expected event for a country that uses terror, arrogant policy and suppression against the nations and peoples, and imposes a single method, thought, and way of life, as if the people of the entire world are clerks in its government offices...

FEMA has pulled a cute little tsunami game for kids from its Web site--for the second time! Somebody had the good sense to yank the game from the site immediately after the devastating South Asian tsunami last month, but then some teachers apparently complained that kids missed it, so FEMA put it back. Actual quote from the game: "A tsunami has just hit FEMA Beach and has rearranged a few things. Please put the 9 objects back where they belong to see the cyber-prize!"

Just one more inaugural tidbit: Ever wonder why nobody sings "Hail to the Chief"? Maybe it's because these are the words:

Hail to the Chief we have chosen for the nation,
Hail to the Chief! We salute him, one and all.
Hail to the Chief, as we pledge co-operation
In proud fulfillment of a great, noble call.

Yours is the aim to make this grand country grander,

This you will do, That's our strong, firm belief.

Hail to the one we selected as commander,

Hail to the President! Hail to the Chief!

President Bush is now standing in his box at the inaugural parade dancing along with some group whose members are pushing decorated shopping carts. This has officially become surreal.

Our own Chris Strohm has returned from the inaugural festivities with the following scoop: He was physically assaulted by former President George H.W. Bush. OK, it was really just a hale-and-hearty, hey-old-buddy punch on the arm as the ex-president enthusiastically told reporters that he thought his son's speech was just dandy. But still.

I just heard "Hail to the Chief" for the 4,000th time today. I wonder if the president ever gets completely sick of this tune. Maybe he just doesn't even notice it any more.

I didn't know the inauguration was a gift-giving occasion. Sen. Trent Lott just gave President Bush and Vice President Cheney a pair of silver-and-crystal hurricane lamps at lunch. How lovely. Also, Peter Jennings of ABC News just informed the nation that we all "simply must" read the journals of Lewis and Clark. OK, Peter.

Do members of the Supreme Court wear their robes everywhere? I'm just asking because every time you see them (at the State of the Union, the inauguration, etc.) they're always robed. I'm picturing Clarence Thomas in line at the Safeway in full regalia. (Thanks to GovExec's George Cahlink for raising this question.)

Vice President Cheney just messed up his oath of office. He was supposed to say, "I do solemnly swear that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, ..." but he actually said, "I will defend and support..." Close enough. House Speaker Dennis Hastert didn't do him any favors by garbling the words when he read the oath to Cheney.

President Bush's supporters have spent much of the week touting his accomplishments in challenging such forces of evil as the leaders of the Taliban, Saddam Hussein, and ... SpongeBob Squarepants? NY Times reports that James Dobson of Focus on the Family targeted the mega-popular kids cartoon character at a black-tie pre-inaugural dinner for members of Congress this week. Apparently, SpongeBob is just a little too close to his best friend, Patrick the starfish, for Dobson's liking. Here's who Dobson should really be concerned about: SpongeBob's nemesis, Plankton. He's the guy who wants to establish one-microscopic-organism rule over the world. (Thanks to D.M. for this one, too.)

AP reports today that "the president was in a cosmic frame of mind on the eve of his inaguration as he anticipated placing his hand on the Bible and promising once more to faithfully defend the Constitution." GovExec's David McGlinchey says he has no idea what this means. I don't either. Update: Maybe it's this: "We have a calling from beyond the stars to stand for freedom, and America will always be faithful to that cause," Bush said at the "Celebration of Freedom" last night.

The much-ballyhooed "lockdown" of Washington has had the hoped-for effect among those of us who commute into the city, but work outside the massive security zone: this morning, there was virtually no traffic at all heading downtown.

One of the nice things about being in Washington during one of these events is that you get drawn in even when you're actively seeking to avoid the whole thing on the grounds that it's just a big annoying hassle. Last night, several of us were treated to an indoor view from our offices of the brief fireworks display at the White House after the pre-inauguration "Celebration of Freedom." Hey, it beat having to stand outside and listen to the Gatlin Brothers before seeing the show.

Newsweek's cover story this week makes the case that, contrary to popular perception, President Bush is both a policy wonk and a hands-on manager. The president, according to the piece, decided last fall to fire "basically everybody" in his Cabinet, on the grounds that they were all burned out and overly accustomed to the perks of high office. And when the time came, he lowered the boom himself in a series of Oval Office meetings. Even when some Cabinet members, like a tearful HHS Secretary Tommy Thompson, begged for other top jobs in the administration, Bush rebuffed them.

Richard Hatch may have been able to fool his fellow contestants on the inaugural edition of TV's Survivor into making him the show's first $1 million winner. But he can't fool the IRS. They've reminded him that cashing his million-dollar check and not paying taxes is not kosher.

One of my favorite things about following the federal bureaucracy is seeing an agency official pop up in the middle of a news story to puncture a bit of conventional wisdom that has found its way into public policy. Case in point: in a piece in today's NY Times about state laws banning drivers' use of cell phones without hands-free devices, up pops Rae Tyson, a spokesman for the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, to say, "We've evaluated and come to the conclusion that hands-free use is just as risky or perhaps riskier than hand-held phones because it's the cognitive distraction that can compromise driving." I have the same thought every time I see a car start weaving through traffic or suddenly slowing to a crawl, and then notice that the driver appears to be talking to himself or herself. It's not the phone, it's the talking.

OK, I'll buy an AP story that says Sen. Ben Nelson, D-Neb., has finally convinced President Bush to stop calling him "Nellie." But I simply don't believe that the president of the United States calls the president of Russia "Pootie-Poot."

The January/February issue of The Atlantic reprints part of a 1959 speech by lengendary columnist Walter Lippman in which he imagines a critic ripping his efforts:

"Is it not absurd," I heard the critic saying, "that anyone should think he knows enough to write so much about so many things? You write about foreign policy. Do you see the cables which pour into the State Department every day from all parts of the world? Do you attend the staff meetings of the Secretary of State and his advisers? Are you a member of the National Security Council? ... Why don't you admit that you are an outsider and that you are, therefore, by definition, an ignoramus?"

Mitch Daniels, President Bush's first OMB chief, was never too popular with federal labor unions, what with his commitment to putting federal jobs up for private-sector competition and all. Now he's making an even bigger impression on his new employees in Indiana state government. National Journal reports this week that in his second day on the job as Indiana's governor, Daniels rescinded a 15-year old executive order allowing state employees to bargain collectively, saying it impeded his ability to reshape the state's bureaucracy.

NASA and its political defenders spend much of their time trying to justify highly risky human space efforts on the grounds that exploration for exploration's sake is somehow hard-wired into our DNA. But the coolest stuff the agency is doing involves simply trying to find creative ways to answer nagging questions about the universe, whether or not such efforts involve astronauts. The latest case in point is yesterday's launch of the Deep Impact spacecraft. On Independence Day, the craft will rendezvous with comet Tempel 1, blast it hard enough to produce a crater somewhere between the size of a house and a football stadium, take pictures of the whole event and find out just what comets are made of. Expect much fanfare--as much as there is for, say, a Mars landing (and much more than a shuttle launch). Why? Because this project is utterly captivating, and because it is likely to generate highly important data.

Uh-oh. The Los Angeles Times reports that the FBI's long-waited Virtual Case File system, aimed at allowing agents to more readily share information, might have to be scrapped. The system was originally scheduled to be completed at the end of 2003, but contractor Science Applications International Corp. didn't deliver a prototype until last month--and it, apparently, isn't working as planned. The FBI has gone as far as contacting other vendors about building a different system.

Suppose you ran an immense bureaucracy (let's call it the "Defense Department") and you needed a new top procurement official. And suppose you've already got someone with several years experience as the top acquisition official at one of your biggest sub-units (let's call it the "Navy"). What's more, this person has extensive experience overseeing defense appropriations as a Senate staffer, and is a trained engineer who has worked on weapons systems at several defense contracting firms. You might think it would be a great idea to promote him to the top job. But in fact, CongressDaily's Amy Klamper reports, it would be illegal. This is what happens when Congress decides that it's just not good enough to be able to pass judgment on political appointees through the confirmation process, and decides to set specific restrictions on who can and cannot even be considered for top executive branch positions.

Is it Pollyannish of me to hold out a sliver of hope that President Bush's characterization of Homeland Security nominee Michael Chertoff as a "talented and experienced public servant" and a "practical organizer, skilled manager and brilliant thinker" shows some recognition that the department's central challenges right now (and for the foreseeable future) are managerial in nature?

I'm working on a column that looks at the resignation letters of people who have recently left the Bush administration. Not to give too much away, but I'm struck by how many of the letters praise career employees. So my question to you out there in the federal workforce is this: Are such sentiments genuine? Do the folks who come in as political appointees actually develop a real appreciation for the work of civil servants? Or do these kinds of declarations fall into the "I'm leaving to spend more time with my family" category of statements that are more convenient than true?

Here's a story for those who were disgusted by--or at least were nodding their heads in agreement at--this morning's previous item. We received the following letter (which has been slightly edited) at GovExec world headquarters this weekend. Call it schmaltzy if you want. But I'm publishing it just because we all know there are a million tales like this for every one we hear about some federal employee screwing up.

I want to thank the United States Postal Service for hiring a mail carrier as kind and considerate as "Ann," our mail carrier. We retired from the Washington, D.C. area in June 2004. We moved to Clinton, Mo. (zip code 64735), which is a small city with just over 9,000 people.

Just before Christmas I had emergency quadruple bypass surgery. Ann found out about this because we were to go to Florida for two months and we had placed a forward on our letter mail. Because our trip was canceled, we had to restart delivery to our [home] address. Ann sent me a note wishing me a quick recovery, but this was only the beginning of her kindness for this period. When the weather is bad, she will pull her vehicle up to the curb and deliver our mail to the door so that my wife doesn't have to go out of the house. Yesterday we had two inches of snow and it remained on the ground today. Ann not only brought the mail to the door, but picked up our newspaper and delivered it to the door.

I hope Ann can be recognized as an outstanding person working for the United States Postal Service. I thank the good Lord for her each day.

In an interview with the Post about his new memoir (scroll down to the middle of the page to find it), former White House press secretary Ari Fleischer hits the nail on the head. "My conclusion is that the press is biased -- biased in favor of conflict," Fleischer says. "There is an ideological element -- a subtle bias on policy issues, particularly on social policy issues, that favors Democrats more than Republicans. But that bias is secondary. Conflict comes first, regardless of whether the press is covering a Democrat or a Republican." Always remember that those things you call "articles" we (in the print media, at least) call "stories." And as any good English teacher or Hollywood screenwriter will tell you, good stories involve conflict.

Since we can't seem to get off the subject of TV, let's just note that it hasn't been much of a week for federal agencies' efforts to promote themselves on the tube. First there was the news that GAO has determined that the White House violated anti-propaganda regulations by distributing "video news releases" designed to look like actual news reports. Now USA Today reports that the Education Department paid black pundit Armstrong Williams $240,000 to promote the No Child Left Behind Act on his syndicated TV show.

Thank you, Fred Kaplan of Slate, for pointing out that what the Homeland Security Department needs right now is not a tough cop like Bernie Kerik (even if he wasn't ethically challenged), but a skilled CEO to manage the ongoing merger of the 22 agencies that were mashed together to create the department. The extreme unlikelihood that such a candidate is even under serious consideration speaks volumes about the political leadership of the federal bureaucracy.

If you think those NOAA folks who seem to be on TV 24 hours a day during weather emergencies deserve some sort of award, you're not alone. Max Mayfield, director of NOAA's National Hurricane Center, won an Emmy in December for his "devotion to television audiences." (Thanks to GovExec's Beth Dickey for this one.)

So the laser man of New Jersey turns out not to be a terrorist, just one of the bigger cowards in recent memory. Blaming your 7-year-old daughter when the cops show up to question you about your shenanigans? Weak.

Put yourself for a moment in the shoes of Post Style section writer Mark Leibovich. You're doing a profile of White House Chief of Staff Andrew Card, who is, to say the least, not one of the more colorful characters in contemporary Washington. Your hopes can't be too high when you go to interview him. But then he goes off on an apparently endless riff about how, using a memory technique developed by a 16th century Jesuit priest, he keeps a virtually paperless office by filing all the information he needs in his mental "kitchen." Trust me, journalistic gifts like this don't come around every day.

Sorry to come out of nowhere and go all-tsunami-all-the time, but there are just a lot of interesting federal angles to the way this story is developing. The NY Times piece on President Bush tapping his two predecessors to lead fundraising efforts contains a thinly veiled jab at the White House, saying the administration insists that "the push for more private giving was not intended to relieve the government of the need to provide more aid at a time when the administration is battling to reduce the budget deficit and is demanding that every government department scour its budget for cuts." White House spokesman Scott McClellan is allowed to defend the scope of the U.S. effort only briefly before the piece twists the knife: "But governments have been relying heavily on nongovernmental organizations and corporations to provide money, logistical help and expertise in the affected countries." What's wrong with that? Effective cooperation with private sector and nongovernmental organizations isn't a sign of a failed or weak governmental effort--in fact, in this day and age, it's usually one of the hallmarks of an effective one.

"The greatest source of America's generosity is not our government," President Bush said yesterday about the Asian tsunami relief effort. "It's the good heart of the American people." True enough. But sometimes the two are one in the same.

The number of Americans confirmed dead in the tsunami is 15. But Secretary of State Colin Powell pointed out yesterday that inquiries have been lodged about 4,000-5,000 more people. The good news is that employees at U.S. consulates have been methodically plowing through the list, and Powell expects that most of the folks eventually will be accounted for. Just one of many take-for-granted activities that federal employees around the world are involved in right now.

I have a theory that the portrayal of federal bureaucrats on TV and in the movies has improved dramatically in recent years, for various reasons. But there's one big exception. On any TV show involving a local law enforcement agency (which includes most cop shows), the feds are invariably portrayed as arrogant overlords, determined to throw their weight around and trample all over the clearly superior detective work of the local cops. I happened across two examples of it over the weekend, on NBC's odd Crossing Jordan and USA Network's fabulous Monk. I've always wondered whether this notion had any basis in fact, or if it was just a convenient story line foisted on Hollywood by the former cops who serve as advisers on many of these kinds of shows. Either way, it's completely played out as a plot point and ought to be shelved, pronto.

Update 1/4: Bill Rados of the FDA argues (and I agree) that the high-water mark of local/federal cooperation on TV was on Twin Peaks. "In that quirky David Lynch series," Rados writes, "FBI agent Dale Cooper teamed up magnificently with local sheriff Harry Truman (no known relation to the former prez) as they both showed their crime-fighting talents in trying to solve the mystery of Who Killed Laura Palmer. And they both knew a 'damn good cup of coffee' when they tasted one. Why can't we all just get along?"

Maybe It Was Dr. Evil. Good news/bad news on the laser beams aimed at pilots story. Good: The spate of recent incidents is not the work of terrorists, the FBI has concluded. Bad: You can apparently bring down an aircraft from the deck of your house with a laser pointer. Maybe it's time to ban these things. But think of the price we'd pay: Boring public speakers would be forced to use their fingers to highlight trivial facts on their PowerPoint slides.

Fedlog is back, after a longer absence than expected. I was hoping to do occasional updates last week, but you know how the time slips away with holiday revelry and all. But I'm back on the job, so new tidbits are on the way.