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Politics : The Citizens Manifesto -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: combjelly who wrote (163)	6/20/2005 12:13:13 PM
From: TimF	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 492

It has gotten to the point that appointees aren't selected on abilities, but on what they believe in. For many positions it would be a mistake to ignore either IMO. If someone is very capable but working against the government's polices or otherwise working in an undesirable direction, the fact that they are capable might actually be counterproductive. In general the people nominated to the high level appointed positions should roughly agree with the president at least in the area that they are responsible for (the head of the EPA doesn't have to agree with the president about Iraq but they should have the same environmental policy ideas). Lower appointed positions might not really have to agree as long as they can get on board with the plan. Lower than that you have civil service positions which shouldn't be politically or ideologically driven IMO (yes they have political ideas, but they shouldn't be selected because of them). There are exceptions. If the president's policy is basically "keep things the way they are", or if there isn't much controversy or disagreement about what the policy should be, or if the prospective appointee is both exceptionally qualified and willing to support the president and his ideas, than it might be ok to ignore an ideological disagreement even in one of the more senior appointed positions. But otherwise ideological disagreements between the president and senior appointees, in areas where the appointee sets or decides policies and procedures, cause problems more often than not. Competent appointees are supposed to get things done but if the appointee is undermining the president's policies than he or she can prevent anything from getting done. Tim