As reported by Catherine Spude, a former National Park Employee in an editorial to the Santa Fe New Mexican back in 2005, the Bush Administration now requires all new mid-level managers of the National Park Service to swear a loyalty oath to the administration currently in power.
all new mid-level managers of the National Park Service will have to swear a fealty oath to the administration currently in power. In other words, in order to get promoted beyond a "worker bee," employees will be approved by a political appointee, promising to be a "yes person."
More after the break...
This move was and is still part of the now sickeningly consistent pattern of the Bush administration politicizing every aspect of the federal government at the expense of experience and competence. With all the loyal toadies that Bush and his cronies have installed at all levels of the federal government it is by design that we witness the colossal failures of the last 6 six years.
Loyal appointees can easily ignore the intent of congress in enforcing laws and regulations. We all know now that the GOP rates "performance" by how loyal one is to GWB and not by any previously accepted standard. We can only hope that congress will have the time to look into this aspect of the Bush Crime family as well.
More here.
UPDATED: This source, "National Park Service is Being Skinned from the Inside-Out" By Todd Wilkinson (also from 2005) describes meddling with the National Park service by a crony with ties to Cheney.
As an assistant Secretary of the Interior, a politically appointed position, he got his job NOT because he holds any professional expertise in stewarding public lands but simply because he was a former staffer decades ago for Vice President Dick Cheney.