×
According to a couple of recent Washington Post items, it seems that perpetual war isn't the only policy of George W. Bush's that Rudy Giuliani wants to give us more of. Apparently, Rudy shares Dubya's habit of installing people with questionable qualifications but unquestioning loyalty in key administration positions:
"While some of his original appointments to high-level city jobs were well regarded, these critics describe a pattern in which capable appointees either quit or were pushed out, leaving the top levels of the Giuliani administration increasingly populated by friends and close associates. Some of the later appointees became shrouded in scandal, including Bernard B. Kerik, the former police commissioner indicted this month on 16 counts of corruption, mail and tax fraud, obstruction of justice, and lying to the government.[...]Hiring political allies for top jobs has a long history in city government, and Giuliani was hardly the first mayor of New York to bring along loyalists to be his advisers inside City Hall. What set him apart, observers say, was the extent to which he also emphasized loyalty in looking for people beyond those City Hall aides to run city agencies. [...]Giuliani "had a blind spot when it came to people he knew well" and "very little respect for the vetting process," [former head of the office of emergency management Jerome] Hauer said. "The competent people in the administration all tended to leave because they got tired of the borderline-incompetent people who got in. He ran off the professionals because they were difficult to work with. If they didn't do things the way he wanted or overshadowed him, he got furious."Wonderful.--Matthew Duss
