Thursday, November 12, 2009

The Latest Faux Outrage

Conservatives are currently going batshit insane over what they believe is the Obama Administration's policy to purge the civil service ranks of all Bush political appointees who have burrowed into civil service jobs in the past five years.

It is a bald-faced lie.

First, a little background. There are federal laws regarding political appointees taking civil service positions and those laws are regulated by the OMB.

Well, regulated is a bit generous. OMB currently only regulates political appointees applying for competitive or sensitive civil service jobs. If the civil service job is not deemed competitive or sensitive, OMB does nothing to regulate political appointees taking those jobs even though the law says they should. These regulations are not strict; most political appointees seeking civil service jobs are cleared easily.

John Berry, the director of OMB, has issued a memo stating that that policy will change as of January 1. After that date, political appointees seeking any civil service job will be screened by OMB. Also, any person who left a political appointment within five years of seeking a civil service job will face similar, easy screenings.

Nothing about purging current civil servants who were once political appointees. And you can see where the five year bullshit came from.

Just more conservative bullshit. More lies.

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