Your scenario has a lot of assumptions which may or may not be true....Neither of us knows enough facts to know which of our scenarios is closer to the reality.
Take off your rose colored glasses. Your assumptions are so consumed with the inherent goodness of Ashcroft, which might very well be valid, that you're lost sight of context. The most likely scenario allows for both Ashcroft, the saint, and Ashcroft, the exerciser of poor management judgment.
Ashcroft is in the habit of conducting these sessions with his staff in Congress. His staff consists of political groupies who have been with him a long time, share his vision, and are enormously loyal to him. The staff members probably like the sessions. Even if they don't, they don't complain because they know he means well and don't feel threatened by them. Even if they did, they wouldn't complain because they couldn't win since Congress has never extended the same protections to it employees that it legislated for both private and civil service employees. They know that they work on the ol' plantation and have no rights.
So Ashcroft moves to DOJ. He brings his loyal followers with him to serve as his immediate staff. They continue to hold their morning sessions. Now, though, they find that the front office is occupied also by some civil servants so they open the doors to them, too. Word gets out. Water coolers are surrounded. There is a leak to the Post from someone who finds this event dissonant in the context of an Executive Branch office. The AG's office does not think to contact the DOJ General Counsel, the facilities people, or the personnel people. They consider this a continuation of the political attack from his confirmation. They respond to the Post that what they're doing is OK because everyone is invited.
I would bet money that this is how it happened, more or less. I say that because it fits the pattern of mis-steps by new administrations. If they understood the implications of what they were doing, they would not have opened the doors to the civil servants in the front office or told the Post that any one of the AG's 135,000 employees was welcome to attend. Had they not assumed it was a political attack, they would have sought counsel from those in the department who are paid to advise them on such matters. No one would have advised them to say that the meetings were open to everyone. They misread the nature of the issue because they didn't understand that the Executive Department workplace is different from the Congressional workplace and that their happy little Congressional practice is poor management practice in their new environment.
Karen |
