Appearing before Congress Wednesday were the Defense Department's Inspector General Gordon S. Heddell, the State Department's Deputy Inspector General Harold Geisel, US AID's Acting Inspector General Michael Carroll, the acting Inspector General for the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction and the Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction Stuart Bowen.
Why was the State Department's Deputy Inspector General testifying? Why not the Inspector General?
As R. Jeffrey Smith (Washington Post) explained last April, "The inspector general's position in the department has been unfilled since 2007, longer than any of the other 72 such positions in the government. Harold W. Geisel, a deputy who formerly worked as a U.S. ambassador, has run the office instead, and he says he has doubled its staff and tripled its investigations." And concerns were being expressed then that there was no IG appointed by Barack Obama.
The five witnesses that testified last week? If Congress calls them back mid-January, only one (Stuart Bowen) will still be an IG, a point noted in the hearing by Chaffetz.
Subcommittee Chair Jason Chaffetz: Before recognizing Ranking Member [John] Tierney, I'd like to note that the Defense Dept, State Dept, USAID and SIGAR will not have IGs in January. In May of this year, I wrote the President asking him to move without delay to appoint replacements. That letter was signed by Senators [Joe] Lieberman, [Susan] Collins, [Claire] McCaskill and [Rob] Portman, as well as [House Oversight Committee] Chairman [Darrell] Issa and Ranking Member [Elijah] Cummings and Ranking Member Tierney. I'd like to place a copy of this record into the record. Without objection, so ordered. To my knowledge, the President has yet to nominate any of these replacements, nor has he responded to this letter. I find that totally unacceptable. This is a massive, massive effort. It's going to take some leadership from the White House. These jobs cannot and will not be done if the president fails to make these appointments. Upon taking office, President Obama promised that his administration would be "the most open and transparent in history." You cannot achieve transparency without inspectors general. Again, I urge President Obama and the Senate to nominate and confirm inspectors general to fill these vacancies and without delay.
Last week, you may have seen headlines about Barack and vacations, such as this one from the Associated Press: "Obama says no vacation till payroll tax cut extended: Republicans Advance Bill." We'd argue that the president should keep his butt in DC until he can name nominees to these positions. These are his job duties and he's had more than enough vacations, more than enough golf games, more than enough basketball games, more than enough daily workouts and more than enough sit-downs with Jay Leno. At what point does he stop posing and start governing?
There are 20 more days left in the month. Then the US loses four people performing oversight. That oversight is to hold the government accountable, to keep it honest. That honestly matters a great deal more than most of the topics Barack grand stands on.
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Illustration is Isaiah's The World Today Just Nuts "Got A Vacation To Take Care Of First."
