Government watchdogs under attack from bosses

From the AP via the Houston Chronicle:

During 2006, several inspectors general felt the wrath of government bosses or their supporters in Congress after investigations cited agencies for poor performance, excessive spending or wasted money.

For instance:

—The top official of the government's property and supply agency compared its inspector general to a terrorist, hoping to chill audits of General Services Administration regional offices and private businesses.

—Directors of the government's legal aid program discussed firing their inspector general, who investigated how top officials lavishly spent tax dollars for limousine services, ritzy hotels and $14 "Death by Chocolate" desserts.

—Administration-friendly Republicans in Congress tried to do away with the special inspector general for Iraq, who repeatedly exposed examples of administration waste that cost billions of dollars. Among the contractors criticized was Halliburton Corp., once headed by Vice President Dick Cheney.

—The Pentagon has been making its inspector general use lawyers picked by the defense secretary instead of independently hired attorneys.

"It's hard to believe that the government is serious about policing itself when it's whacking the people who are actually minding the store," said Danielle Brian, executive director of the Project On Government Oversight, a nonpartisan group that tracks government waste and fraud. "These people are our security officers who help guard tens of billions of dollars. It's ridiculous to prevent them from doing their jobs."

And

Congress created the inspectors general jobs during the post-Watergate era to ensure federal agencies had independent oversight and accountability. The IGs audit how money is spent and also play a critical role in investigating allegations of wrongdoing and protecting federal whistleblowers.

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You know, I'm really glad that this made the news, but I'm pretty disappointed that the article's general slant is such that it ignores that Bush has been pulling shit like this for years. That is, this attack on the inspectors general is clearly part of an overall context of White House power expansion, which includes, but certainly isn't limited to, appointing industry sympathizers to key regulatory positions, and levels of executive branch secrecy that would have made Nixon blush. The system of governmental checks and balances enacted by our founding fathers wasn't simply something patriotically clever: the three branches of our federal system are pitted in opposition to one another in order to keep any one of them from becoming too powerful and taking over, which would end democracy as we understand it.

Bush's ongoing power grab is essentially playing with fire in a room full of gasoline soaked rags, and it really pisses me off that the political class and the press refuse to call it what it is.

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