GovernmentExecutive.com

"Federal Workforce Faces Onslaught of Retirements" OPM shouted last week. "In the federal government we have a tsunami coming that I call the retirement wave," said OPM Director Linda Springer at a job fair. This latest salvo in the "human capital crisis" crusade brings to mind several thoughts:

• Isn't the rhetoric at best overheated ("onslaught") and at worst in questionable taste ("tsunami")?


• We've been talking about this retirement wave for five years now. So when exactly is it going to happen? As Brian Friel reported way back in 2003, the dramatic statistics about the vast numbers of employees who allegedly are on the verge of leaving are arrived at only by combining the number of employees eligible for regular retirement with those eligible to retire early. But few in government actually do retire early. Why do we continue to artificially make the situation look worse than it is?
  
• Obviously, there are a lot of baby boomers who are considering when to leave government service. But they're not all the same age, in the same financial boat, or working at the same kind of agency in the same kind of job. That means that there's not a single governmentwide human capital crisis, but rather dozens and dozens of agencies each with their own individual challenges. (That's why we need to jettison the one-size-fits-all civil service system in favor of a more flexible one, right?)


• I understand the motivation for wanting to make the situation seem dire, especially at recruiting events. There's nothing like screaming "We're going to have all kinds of openings once those boomers clear out!" to get the attention of prospective new employees. But if massive numbers of new openings are not in fact going to materialize at any given time, isn't government running the risk of further irritating those young people who already take a pretty dim view of federal service as a career?

The beat goes on at U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, with even more arrests of illegal aliens working for contractors at U.S. military facilities.

Some fairly disturbing news from GAO's new report on the medical and physical fitness of reserve forces called to active duty:

DOD is unable to determine the care provided to those deployed with preexisting medical conditions because DOD has not determined what preexisting conditions may be
allowed into a specific theater and, thus, does not know what conditions to track. Evidence GAO developed suggests that members are deployed into theater with preexisting conditions, such as diabetes, heart problems, and cancer.

Memo to Michael Chertoff: If you really think that Mike Brown was to blame for all of the problems with the Katrina response, then maybe you should consider getting him off the payroll.

I continue to be amazed at the post-Katrina push behind the notion that perhaps high-level political appointments ought to go to people who are qualified for them and have demonstrated management expertise. Don't get me wrong, I'm all for this idea. It's just that I thought we as a country had given up on it a long time ago.

This week, Slate's Fred Kaplan is again flogging a pet proposal of his: Pushing ex-GE superstar exec Jack Welch as the guy to run the Homeland Security Department. I'm not fully buying this--Welch doesn't know any more than Mike Brown about homeland security or disaster response, after all--but I agree that what DHS needs is strong, effective management. Here's what Kaplan has to say about the current DHS chief:

[Michael] Chertoff recently said, in response to criticism over his handling of Hurricane Katrina, "I'm not a hurricane expert." He's right, and nobody should expect him to be. But he was wrong in thinking that all he had to do, as a result, was to leave the task to the director of FEMA, Michael Brown. Had Chertoff been a good manager—in other words, had he been a good match for his job—he would have delegated to Brown, but he also would have leaned over Brown's shoulder, asked questions, made sure that the answers made sense and that the orders were being followed. Long before Katrina happened, he would have hired assistant secretaries and chiefs of staff who knew what the right questions were—who knew at least the rudiments of the department's mission and operations.

The bad news for the federal government in a new survey by the Pew Research Center for the People and the Press is that its favorability rating has dropped from 59 percent last year to 45 percent this year. The good news is that ratings for corporations are dropping like a rock, too. So what's happening here is that discontent about corporate scandals, a war in Iraq with no end in sight, one hurricane after another, etc., are affecting all of the country's big institutions, right? Not so fast. Those of us in the news media are holding steady in the public eye, thank you very much.

Sure, you love us when times are bad, but we know you'll turn on us when things start looking up.

Sen. Tom Coburn, R-Okla., and the new "Fiscal Watch" team in the Senate have a plan to cut federal spending to pay for the relief and reconstruction costs of hurricanes Katrina, Rita--and I suppose Wilma, now, too. One element of the proposal:

A freeze on cost-of-living adjustments for federal employees, including members of Congress, with the exception of law enforcement and military personnel.

Did you know that the Lewis and Clark expedition was an Army mission? Or that the Corps of Engineers still owns 95 percent of the land that the explorers traveled through on their voyage west? Well, educate yourself.

The latest from FEMA: Just because we sent you a letter denying you disaster assistance doesn't necessarily mean that we're, umm, denying you disaster assistance. "This letter may represent only one step in the process to receive aid," the agency says. Seriously, you can't make stuff like this up.

Agriculture Secretary Mike Johans couldn't have ordered up a more gushing profile than appeared on the Federal Page of today's Washington Post. A sampling: Mike dusts. Mike eats sack-lunch ham sandwiches with his wife. Mike goes grocery shopping. (And sees his own department's food pyramid!) Mike is a "compulsive window washer." Mike does his own ironing. Mike's "best time" is "when I'm out there, mowing the lawn." I'm sure he's a great down-home guy and all, but this is laying it on a bit thick.

Matt Mihsen, 47, of Chandler, Texas, figured he could succeed where the United States military couldn't: in tracking down Osama bin Laden. With his eye on the $25 million bounty on bin Laden's head, Mihsen tried to board a plane on Feb. 15 at Detroit International Airport to Amsterdam, Netherlands, with a connecting flight to Damascus, Syria. Alas, customs and immigration officers took a dim view of his plan, especially since it involved trying to get on the flight with "three radiation detectors, one bulletproof vest, 40 rounds of 9mm Black Talon ammunition, one handheld taser device, one rifle scope, one spray can of mace, and $13,256 in unreported currency." The good news for Mihsen is that after he pleaded guilty last week, he got off with time served and one year's supervised release.

If you had the misfortune of being hit by both Hurricane Katrina and Rita, on top of everything else, FEMA now wants you to know that your Katrina registration for benefits doesn't count for Rita, and you have to register all over again.

From Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff's statement on President Bush’s nomination of George Foresman to be undersecretary for preparedness:

Mr. Foresman is a highly respected, veteran emergency management professional with more than twenty years of emergency preparedness experience at various levels of government. Most recently, he served as an Assistant to the Governor of Virginia for Commonwealth Preparedness and was responsible for the Commonwealth's emergency and disaster preparedness activities, including coordination with the private sector.

Curious, though that Chertoff's list of the nominee's accomplishments left out winning the heavyweight boxing title twice (and more than 20 years apart), or the invention of that terrific indoor grill. Oh, "Foresman." Never mind.

In case you missed it, here's part of OPM Director Linda Springer's statement on this year's Presidential Rank Award winners:

These awards present a much-deserved opportunity to recognize those who have made significant progress in advancing the President’s Management Agenda while producing results for the American people...

• The awards are now expressly for "advancing the President's Management Agenda," that is, furthering the political goals of the current administration? OPM's Web site says they're supposed to be for "exceptional long-term accomplishments" in a federal career. That's not the same thing.










• Executives are to be commended for advancing the PMA "while producing results for the American people"? Is the administration suggesting that implementing the PMA and producing results for citizens is a heroic achievement--that is, that the two don't go hand in hand?

The ordinary cotton olive drab T-shirt is simply no match for the 110-degree temperatures troops routinely encounter in the Iraqi desert. So the Marines launched a search for a next-generation high-tech undershirt. After months of testing, Danskin, Inc., has delivered with Elite Issue, a t-shirt featuring anti-microbial, anti-moisture and (most importantly for morale, one would guess) anti-odor technology.

Now the only problem may be convincing Marines that the product is sufficiently macho. “Before Elite Issue, the only males who wore Danskin products were wearing them under a Mickey Mouse or Goofy suit at Disney World; it helped to keep the guys inside from overheating,” acknowledges Carol Hochman, Danskin's president and chief executive officer.

Hybrid electric power: Coming soon to a Hummer near you?

Here’s a piece of news that simply depresses me about the state of American television entertainment: The dopey Commander-in-Chief clocks in at eighth place in the latest TV ratings, while the infinitely superior West Wing doesn’t even crack the Top 20.

At least we know where the buck stops at Homeland Security: Anywhere but Mike Chertoff's desk. "I'm no hurricane expert," he kept telling congressional investigators today. It was, he said, somebody else's job to figure out what to do about Katrina and tell him how to do it. Who, exactly? It's politically incorrect to suggest that the state and local officials who were themselves victimized should share in the blame, so Chertoff wouldn't point the figure in their direction. Who does that leave? Brownie the Designated Fall Guy, of course, and also the career officials at FEMA--who apparently are supposed to get the job done despite steady declines in resources, staff and top-level leadership.

Every day, it seems, brings another story of creative financing for cash-strapped federal operations that makes one long for the days when good ol' appropriations did the job. The New York Times reports today that "about $2 billion flows through military-owned slot machines at officers' clubs, activities centers and bowling alleys on overseas bases each year." The house gets 6 percent of the take, so every year, the armed forces get more than $120 million from slot machines. That money funds other recreational activities, so the services are loathe to give it up, despite the fact that on-base gambling has a checkered history.

Members of Congress from rural states can't say the Agriculture Department has never done them any favors. USDA's ill-conceived, ill-executed and, ultimately, ill-fated plan to close hundreds of Farm Service Agency county offices has enabled all of these members to issue press releases crowing about how they stopped the idea in its tracks. (See here and here for just a couple of examples.) If you want to do something as politically charged as shut down federal offices in congressional districts across the country, this is a textbook case of how not to do it.

Even as you're reading this, invaders are threatening American military installations. Foreign troops? Terrorists? Nope. Exotic plants and wild boars. "Invasive species are silently becoming entrenched in our ecosystems and pose a real threat to military facilities and readiness across the country," says Heidi Hirsh, natural resource specialist at the Marine Corps headquarters in Washington.

"Rich, Poor, See Poverty Very Differently." I bet they do.

Just say, "you're busted." The FBI reports that police across the country arrested 771,608 persons for marijuana violations in 2004. That's one every 41 seconds, the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws laments.

Well, it's official. With Tropical Storm Wilma gaining strength in the Caribbean, this year's list of hurricane names has been exhausted. What, no Xavier, Yolanda, or Zeus? Nope.

Here's part of the Treasury's Department's press release on fiscal 2005 budget results:

The statement shows the actual budget totals for the fiscal year that ended September 30, 2005, as follows:

• A deficit of $319 billion;


• total receipts of $2,154 billion; and


• total outlays of $2,473 billion.

"The year-end budget report highlights the positive results of the President's economic leadership...."

--Secretary John W. Snow

It does?

Marine Corps recruiter Victor Domingo Ramirez was convicted last week of using a U.S. government van (while he was in uniform) to transport three illegal aliens. Maybe he should've argued he was just trying an innovative recruiting technique.

The Federal Emergency Management Agency may have been a tad slow to ramp up its response to Hurrincane Katrina, but now that the money is starting to flow, the agency has some advice for victims: Don't blow it on the wrong stuff.

Richard Barr of U.S. Customs and Border Protection is feeling a little, well, downsized. Last year, he notes, the Combined Federal Campaign of the National Capital Area challenged civil servants to step up their charitable contributions and "Be a Super Hero!" This year, apparently, expectations are a little lower. The new slogan? "Be an Everyday Hero."

"Ohhh nooo! Pleeeaaaasse, don't arrest me! No, no, no, no noooo!" That must've been the sort of reaction the Drug Enforcement Agency expected when it organized a campaign against a major methamphetamine and cocaine trafficking organization and called it Operation Long Whine. This week, the operation resulted in an indictment targeting members of the organization. Here's how the DEA described who they caught:

The following 22 defendants were charged in the indictment, which was returned by a federal grand jury on October 11, 2005: FNU LNU (first name unknown and last name unknown) a/k/a “GOTTI;” FNU LNU, a/k/a “JAIME;” FNU LNU, a/k/a “LICENCIADO” and “GORDO;” LUIS ANTONIO RAMIREZ CARDENAS, a/k/a “TONO” and “GORDITO;” FNU LNU, a/k/a “SERGIO 1” and “ENGINERO;” FNU LNU, a/k/a, “SERGIO 2" and “EL SOBRINO;” FNU LNU, a/k/a “WILLY;” FNU LNU, a/k/a “SOPE;” YOLANDA BOJORQUEZ, a/k/a/ “YOLI;” MARCO AURELIO DELEON, a/k/a “GORDITO;” HECTOR MANUEL VILLAFORTE BARRIENTOS; EDGAR DELACRUZ CASWED; KEVIN ROBINSON; FNU LNU, a/k/a “ANDY;” FNU LNU, a/k/a “CHILE;” JUAN ARTURO NAMUR-MONTALVO, a/k/a "CAULIFLOWER;" FERNANDO ROSALES BONILLA; FNU LNU, a/k/a CHEJO; FNU LNU, a/k/a “JOSE ALFREDO;” BRYANT RODRIGUEZ; ANA MARIE ORREGO; and KEVIN FRANKLIN.

A Labor Department field investigator takes issue with my post yesterday linking to a contracting specialist who told Kausfiles that enforcing the Davis-Bacon Act is largely a waste of federal time.

D-B, the investigator says, includes several provisions that ought not to be trivial to taxpayers, including, crucially, the ability to hold prime contractors liable for making sure their subcontractors actually pay prevailing wages. Why is this important? I'll let the investigator answer that:

Because this is the real world of government construction today: Many contracts are initially won by large, multi-state management firms who in turn take bids nationwide for the actual on-site trade work. I have seen many, many small (under 50 employees) companies take the sub work. Truthfully, I can’t recall any time in the last 10 years when I have seen a large employer with their employees performing the actual construction. These subs may be “local” in that they reside closer than the prime, but workers often are coming from outside a local commute and are dedicated to the one project only, sleeping in cars or friend’s couches.

In the states where I work, the workforce is primarily non-English speaking immigrants, and what we’ve found countless times is this: Subs calculating pay at piecerate...and promising to pay workers at the end of the job. Subs tell their people that workers get paid when they get money from the prime.

What’s wrong with this picture? First of all, in the best circumstances, this means a delay in pay from months up to years for the workers. In the worst, of course, the worker is never paid....

Did the government pay for those labor costs? You betcha. So where did it go? Here’s where the squabbling comes in between the contractors and the subs. Regardless, I can tell you it didn’t go back to the U.S. Treasury, and without the legal recourses offered in D-B, you can go to sleep at night knowing your local federal building, highway or port was built from slave labor.

I'm no technological expert, but it can't be good news when, in the same week, problems with Federal Aviation Administration radar systems result in phantom planes appearing on radar screens at Boston's Logan International Airport, while aircraft disappear from controllers' scopes at the Washington Air Route Traffic Control Center in Leesburg, Va.

Don't miss Karen Rutzick's story today on pay and personnel reform legislation, pointing out that you can lead federal managers to the water of human resources flexibilities, but it's difficult to make them drink. The list of underutilized flexibilities already on the books is long indeed. (Like the ability to fire poor performers during the probationary period, for example.) There may be some value in enacting governmentwide human capital reform legislation, if only to send the message to agencies and managers that now's the time to change the way you do business. But given the history of these things, I'm skeptical at best.

Interesting down-in-the-federal-weeds reading over at Kausfiles on the Davis-Bacon Act, and why the Bush administration may have had bureaucratic, rather than political, reasons for seeking its suspension in New Orleans and the Gulf Coast. Implementing the law, one federal contract specialist writes, "wastes a lot of a more precious resource than government money: government time. Enforcing and implementing Davis-Bacon adds days, weeks, months to processes. Bush cut it because it makes sense."

Here's an eyebrow-raising headline from the Globe and Mail, "Canada's National Newspaper": "Fed raised rates after Katrina to look cool." Yeah, there's nothing like a little interest rate hike to turn Alan Greenspan into George Clooney. Turns out what the paper really meant was that the folks at the Federal Reserve didn't want to look like they were panicking about the potential effects of Katrina on the U.S. economy.

Across-the-board cuts are coming to NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, the Whittier (Calif.) Daily News reports. Some of the lab's 5,400 employees have already received layoff notices due to fiscal 2006 budget cuts. About 200 federal employees and 100 contractors are expected to lose their jobs.

Bad news for fans of the old "reinventing government" movement. Al Gore says he has "absolutely no plans and no expectations" of ever running for president again. Gore was arguably the greatest student of the bureaucracy ever to serve a heartbeat away from the presidency, but came up a little short in the charisma department. Which brings to mind a line from the wonderfully funny song "Wintertime Blues," by the incomparable John Hiatt on his recent album, Master of Disaster:

And it's a one, two

My lips are turning blue...

And it's three, four

I'm stiff as Al Gore...

Senate Democrats have made it official: They intend to try to campaign on the issue of improving the management and operations of the federal government. Sens. Mark Pryor of Arkansas and Byron Dorgan of North Dakota have been put in charge of the Responsible Governance initiative, aiming to "end the culture of cronyism and corruption that pervades Washington." Doubtless they'll continue to score some short-term points by tapping into post-Katrina anger and resentment about the government's performance. But over the long haul, words like "governance" tend not to resonate with the electorate. Nor do efforts to take power out of the hands of political appointees and turn it over to career bureaucrats.

The Federal Communications Commission has set up a special Web site devoted to obscenity, indecency and profanity, bragging of the $8 million in fines the agency levied last year against purveyors of smut over the airwaves. Unfortunately, they don't offer any real-world examples of what said smut looks or sounds like, but rather stick to descriptive language that is almost comically euphemistic and clinical. Just one example: "The FCC [has] warned broadcasters that, depending on the context, it would consider the 'F-Word' and those words (or variants thereof) that are as highly offensive as the 'F-Word' to be 'profane language' that cannot be broadcast between 6 a.m. and 10 p.m." I'm imagining the looks of disappointment on the faces of random Googlers when the search terms they enter result in this page popping up.

The rules about what you can and canot carry on to an aircraft are a little murky, but I thought some of the basics--like no guns and bullets--were pretty clear. Apparently not. Here's Kenneth Kasprisin, North Central Area Director for the Transportation Security Administration, in a press release issued last week: "We want to especially remind hunters that ammunition must be properly packaged and placed in checked baggage. Weapons and ammunition cannot be taken through the passenger checkpoints. We also advise everyone to carefully check all pockets and the bottoms of carry-on bags for loose ammunition."

Forget about Columbus. What'd you do for Leif Erikson Day?

Here's American Federation of Government Employees President John Gage, in a letter to Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff imploring him to dump proposed personnel system revisions, arguing that the union speaks for all employees in the department:

Our voice is their voice. The concerns we offer are their concerns. When we offer criticisms or portray anger, it reflects what we hear from them. If you shut out our voice, you are shutting out their voice. If you reject our concerns, you are rejecting their concerns. If you dismiss the ideas we offer, you are dismissing their ideas and if you ignore the anger we portray on their behalf, you are really ignoring their anger.

Misperceptions about the traits of "typical" Americans, Brazilians, Chinese, and other groups are rampant, according to research conducted by a pair of scientists at the National Institute on Aging at the National Institutes of Health. Some of their findings:

Americans believe the typical American is very assertive, and Canadians believe the typical Canadian is submissive, but in fact Americans and Canadians have almost identical scores on measures of assertiveness, a little above the world average. Looking at other personality traits, the researchers found that Indian citizens type themselves as unconventional and open to a wide range of new experiences, but measurements of personality show that they are more conventional than the rest of the people in the world. Czechs believe that Czechs are antagonistic and disagreeable, but when personality is actually observed, Czechs score higher than most people in the world on measures of altruism and modesty.

Looks like the Army is trying to take a different approach to detainee treatment at the notorious Abu Ghraib prison. From the Army News Service:

Concrete bunkers, strategically placed within the confines of Abu Ghraib prison for detainee protection, turned into works of art when juvenile detainees were offered the challenge to paint them in the form of a contest.

The detainees were given paint and supplies provided by the 306th Military Police Battalion’s Repair and Utilities section to decorate the bunkers, and a few theme ideas, such as “a united Iraq” to get them started.

Oh no! The Agriculture Marketing Service has discovered that the United States Standards for Grades of Fresh Asparagus "do not have provisions for grading purple or white asparagus." Luckily for all of us, they have taken steps to rectify the situation.

The new official Medicare handbook for beneficiaries contains a little mistake: A whole bunch of plans for low-income recipients are listed as having no premium, when only about 40 percent of them are actually premium-free. But it's no big deal. The folks at Medicare only printed 35 million of the handbooks.

Two Indonesian natives and a Senegalese man were arrested Wednesday and charged with immigration violations. That wouldn't be so unusual, except for the fact that the three worked as contract language instructors at the Army's John F. Kennedy Special Warfare Center and School at Fort Bragg, N.C. That follows the arrest Tuesday of seven illegal aliens at Mountain Home Air Force Base, Idaho, who were working on a base housing project. U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement reports that the problem of unauthorized aliens finding work as contractors at U.S. military facilities appears to be fairly widespread. Some other recent examples:

• On July 26, ICE agents arrested six illegal aliens working at the Homestead Air Reserve Base in Homestead, Fla. The men were working for a Texas-based corporation, were working on a major runway-resurfacing project.


• On July 6, 48 illegal aliens who were working at the Seymour Johnson Air Force Base in Goldsboro, N.C. were arrested.


• On June 1, ICE agents arrested 26 illegal workers who had access to the Northrup Grumman Shipyard in Pascagoula, Mississippi.


• On May 17, ICE agents arrested 9 unauthorized aliens performing contract work at a Winston-Salem, N.C., facility that refits the U.S. Navy’s P-3 Orion aircraft.


• On April 14, ICE agents arrested 18 illegal aliens working for a San Diego company that performed maintenance on U.S. Navy vessels in San Diego. An ICE audit of the contractor revealed that nearly half its employees were illegal workers.

Forget about money for college, or learning valuable job skills, or starting a military career. Dude, if you agree to be contacted by a National Guard recruiter, you can totally get three free iTunes! (Here's what I don't get though. The Web site says the offer is "valid through October 15, 2005, while supplies last." What, are they running low on iTunes? I think the supply is pretty much unlimited.)

For the first time in history, a U.S. coin will feature the image of a president facing forward, rather than in profile, the U.S. Mint has announced. The 2006 version of the "Westward Journey" series of nickels will include a head-on view of Thomas Jefferson. And, AP reports, he'll be smiling.

Think the U.S. is afraid of a trade war with China? Think again. The International Trade Commission has a message for Chinese exporters: Don't even think about dumping your paper clips on us. Or your pencils, for that matter.

Yikes! Apparently the stereotype of Americans is true. The National Institutes of Health reports that a community-based study found that over 30 years, nine out of 10 men and seven out of 10 women were overweight or became overweight. And more than one in three were obese or became obese. More than 4,000 residents of Framingham, Mass., aged 30 to 59, participated in the study from 1971 to 2001.

Congratulations to John (Jan) L. Hall, a scientist emeritus of the National Institute of Standards and Technology's Quantum Physics Division, for winning a share of the Nobel Prize in Physics. NIST says Hall was honored for "contributions to the development of laser-based precision spectroscopy, including the optical frequency comb technique." I'll take their word for it that that's a pretty cool accomplishment.

It apparently has occurred to NASA Administrator Michael Griffin that denigrating every major project his agency has undertaken in the past three decades is not a great way to build morale. Last week, he told USA Today that the space shuttle and the space station were both big mistakes (see Sept. 28 item below). Now, the paper reports that Griffin has sent an e-mail to agency employees attempting to extricate his foot from his mouth. "I do hope you know that I would never speak of our efforts, past or present, in a way intended to denigrate the efforts of the engineers, technicians, managers, scientists and administrative personnel who 'make it happen' at NASA and at our contractors," he wrote.

The FBI is making good on its promise to shift its resources to the war on terror. The agency opened 62,782 criminal investigations in 2000, but only 34,451 last year, Justice Department Inspector General Glenn A. Fine has reported. That's a drop of 45 percent. But other federal, state and local law enforcement organizations have picked up the slack, Fine says.

Attention Minutemen: Rep. Rick Larsen, D-Wash., wants you to to stay on the southern border. While there may be some value down there in trying to scare off illegal immigrants, the problems up north have more to do with drug and gun running. Those, Larsen says, are best left to the professionals.

As crisp fall weather sets in, you might want to set that thermostat in your office a little lower. Energy Secretary Samuel Bodman has ordered teams of "qualified energy experts" to go to federal facilities to find quick and easy ways to save energy this winter. Uncle Sam is the nation's largest energy consumer.

What do athletes and military trainees have in common? A tendency to injuries to the anterior cruciate ligament of the knee. The Air Force Academy and a group of universities wants to know why.

Two Americans arrived at the International Space Station Monday on a Russian Soyuz capsule: Gregory Olsen, a private citizen who paid $20 million for the privilege, and William McArthur, a NASA astronaut. Only one of them, however, has a ride home. And it's the millionaire, not the astronaut.

It's only been a few hours since President Bush nominated Harriet Miers to serve on the Supreme Court, and already the blogosphere has spoken: Just another Bush crony pick. I wonder if the president has any idea how much gas he's thrown on this particular fire, and how difficult it will make the process of appointing anybody to any position in his administration from here on out. Potential good news for the bureaucracy, though: the administration will be more under the gun than ever to show that its appointees have actual qualifications.

Judging from the e-mail that's starting to come in, it looks like I've touched a nerve with my column today suggesting that perhaps the conventional wisdom on President Bush's political appointees--that they are a motley set of cronies and hacks--is a little off the mark. I'm sure many of the people on the right who've sent me indignant messages over the years will be amused to learn that I am now viewed as a pro-administration lackey, at least in some quarters. To quote one correspondent:

The only defense to this poorly written article you wrote is that either you are naturally inept or your pro-Cheney editor made you write it in your name and you were too spineless to oppose him. Otherwise, this is a lousy piece of journalism.

Here's the Forest Service's reaction to a court ruling overturning limits on the public's right to comment on forest decisions: Fine, then we'll even put off cutting the national holiday tree for the U.S. Capitol. And we'll hold our breath until we turn blue, too.