The Washington Post's Spencer Hsu reports something important--and encouraging--this morning. The headline sums it up:
Many Bush Officials Held Over at DHS/Obama Administration Makes the Unusual Move to Ensure Continuity
As Hsu explains,
Wary of being caught short-handed in case of a domestic crisis, the Obama administration has asked nearly two dozen Bush administration officials in the Department of Homeland Security to stay in their jobs until successors can be named.
The attempt at continuity is unusual in presidential transitions between parties, which typically lead to wholesale purging of politically appointed personnel. ...
By contrast, Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano has retained the department's second-ranking official, Deputy Secretary Paul A. Schneider, and its top border security official, U.S. Customs and Border Protection Commissioner W. Ralph Basham, as well as its operations director and the assistant secretaries responsible for policy and private sector coordination. The heads of the Coast Guard and Secret Service, who are not political appointees, and DHS Undersecretary for Management Elaine C. Duke, whose tenure is set by law, also remain.
The point here is not that Schneider, Basham, Duke, et al. are irreplaceable--nobody, no matter how talented, is irreplaceable.
Instead, the bottom line is that Team Obama is determined to proceed in an orderly fashion, not making change in personnel just for the sake of change. They want to get their people into place first, and only then move out the previous team.
That's good government, at a time of presidential transition, at its best.
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