By Joshua Kurlantzick
Mother Jones Magazine

Every administration has its share of politically appointed deadwood-ex-campaign workers, big fundraisers, incompetent ideologues. Traditionally, after duds like Reagan Interior Secretary James Watt were exposed, presidents showed them the door.

Not today. In the Bush White House, the duds fail upward, obtaining ever more senior government jobs or landing safely in the private sector. This may be because, as Boston College political scientist Alan Wolfe has written, Republicans have become so disdainful of government that they no longer care if the bureaucracy is filled with the unqualified and the unscrupulous. This administration’s premium on political loyalty over substantive experience only makes things worse: A report last year by the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee found that in the president’s first five years in office, the number of political appointees hired without public scrutiny or congressional approval increased by one-third. (It had declined by 17 percent under Clinton.)

Some notable masters of professional gravity defying include George Tenet, awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom for his slam dunks on Iraq and 9/11; Paul Wolfowitz, who went on to shock and awe the World Bank; and Federal Emergency Management Agency (fema) head Michael “Brownie” Brown, who now runs a consulting firm whose specialties include-you guessed it-disaster management. But they’re just the tip of the iceberg.

Patrick Rhode
started as: fema chief of staff, 2003-2006
heckuva job: Former television reporter and Bush campaign event planner Rhode had little disaster management experience when he came to fema. As Katrina drowned New Orleans, he emailed his boss Michael Brown, boasting that he was getting his hair moussed for TV rather than coordinating disaster relief efforts.
soft landing: In January, Rhode was hired as a senior adviser at nasa. An agency spokesman conceded that Rhode’s no rocket scientist, but explained, “He’s done a lot of things.”

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