| 12 March 2006 Spring Cleaning Gale Norton, Secretary of the Interior Department, has decided to spend more time with her family and resigned. Claude Allen, senior domestic policy advisor to the President, has decided to spend more time with his family, too. He has not resigned as of this morning, but I expect that to come tomorrow. I am humbled by their decisions to get on with Spring Cleaning. I would like to spend more time with my family, as well, but I have to work to pay for their expenses. Maybe we will catch up after they are done working at their new careers or finish college, or encounter some scandal that makes them elect to spend more time with me. The cases of Gail and Claude are not the same, though they are analogous. I had a chance to interact with Secretary Norton only briefly, but in a very memorable place and time after the September attacks. Stripped of her staff and hangers-on, I found her to be intelligent and gracious, and reveled in the opportunity to chat with someone who the lightning bolt of fame had struck and not reduced to ash. Not yet, anyway. Claude was similar; gracious and intelligent, he hired me at the Department of Health and Human Services on the recommendation of a very smart and influential friend. It was my last encounter with the lightning bolt of government, my swan-song of public service. Claude left the Department as the Deputy Secretary, number-two official behind Secretary Thompson, after being nominated by the President to the 4th Circuit Federal appeals bench. He was caught in the cross-hairs of the then-raging war over judicial appointments, and instead wound up in the White House. He is accused of something or other that is inappropriate. I won't dignify it here, and you can find it easily enough on the Web. The story was staring at me his morning as soon as I flicked on the machine. If it was a misunderstanding, I hope it will be resolved. But I think it has destroyed a fine man, a rising star, whether the allegations are true or not. I walked over to the door and flung it open on the rich air that is flowing up from the south. Windows are open for the first time this year, and I can hear couples discussing how to begin their day. It is a seasonal adjustment that we should remember to protect our nieghbor's sensibilities. I drank coffee and looked out over Big Pink's parking lot at the Church. I have often thought about going back into Government Service. The private sector is filled with uncertainty these days, and that is an uncomfortable feeling one never had in the glacial flow of a government career. The job would always be there, a marathon versus a sprint, which is what differentiates the bureaucrat from the political appointee. The Politicals sprint their way through the agenda, and, out of breath, are useless in the last year or so before the next round of elections. The process leaves some time for the bureaucrats to prepare for the Spring Cleaning that would come with the new flock of eager appointees. I had lunch with one of my old colleagues at the Pentagon the other day. I like the Building. It hums with activity. It starts early, and stays late, and everyone knows that the business that is done there is important, and is worthy of full attention. I asked about the hours, and winced when I heard them. My friend has to be in the office most mornings shortly after six a.m., and there is a seven o'clock staff meeting most days to accommodate. Once there, the days cascade through meetings and phone calls until it is six p.m. That is just a normal day, and dos not account for the inevitable catastrophe. I began to rethink my feeling that I might have the capacity to do one more tough job for the Government. But after lunch, traveling back downtown on the subway, I thought that I liked what I was doing. It did not suck the life out of me and leaves a little time for other things. I don't think that I have the capability to go back to twelve-hour days. We used to laugh, and call them “Pentagon half days.” We were proud of our endurance, our ability to absorb pain. Maybe that is true for Gale and Claude, too. Maybe it is just the crush of the hours over two terms that clouded their judgment and brought them to the decisions they were told to make. They say everyone in the Administration is tired. The pace of events is certainly frantic, and has been so since the first momentous acts and decisions began after 9/11. They say that Karl Rove is unfocused, at a loss now that he has no further elections to win for the President. Mr. Cheney has got to be tired, and he has had decades of this sort of pressure, with only the odd hunting trip and the stint at Halliburton to break the stress. Maybe the answer is a six-year Presidency. That would synchronize the Senate and the Chief Executive, and each new President would arrive in Washington as a freshly-minted lame duck. Six years is plenty of time, I would think, and you might be able to find your family when it was over. The kids would only have finished high school and college by then. A six-year term would also have the advantage of minimizing the amount of damage any given Administration could inflict. Think of Mr. Reagan's second term, or Mr. Clinton's. I shudder when I think of Mr. Nixon's. And with almost three years to go in this Administration, it seems appropriate that everyone should have a chance to phone home. Touch base, and see what everyone is up to. Contemplate. Gain perspective. Get in touch with what is going on. Maybe do some spring cleaning and clean out the place. It might be useful. Copyright 2006 Vic Socotra |