Editorial: Another problem appointee

Saturday, Oct. 29, 2005 | 10:01 a.m.

The seemingly endless parade of unqualified federal appointees continued this week as President Bush's nominee to head the State Department's refugee program fielded tough questions from senators. Ellen Sauerbrey, the two-time Republican candidate for governor of Maryland who ran Bush's 2000 election campaign in that state, has been nominated to become the next assistant secretary of state for population, refugees and migration.

Those who have held the post most recently possessed extensive experience in disaster management and refugee affairs. Sauerbrey herself has admitted she has not specifically dealt with refugees.

Still, she adds, she could lead the office because she has management skills and because she made many contacts with relief organizations through her work as U.S. representative to U.N. entities dealing with human rights and women's affairs.

But questionable experience and cronyism are too common among Bush appointees.

Michael Brown, who resigned as Federal Emergency Management Administration chief after his agency's embarrassingly sluggish response to Hurricane Katrina, had no previous disaster management experience. But he was assistant director to, and pals with, former FEMA Director Joseph Albaugh.

And Julie L. Myers, a 36-year-old lawyer facing a final Senate vote on her appointment to head the Homeland Security Department's immigration agency, has no immigration experience. But she is married to the chief of staff for Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff, her would-be boss.

It would seem that President Bush and his staff would realize that fewer and fewer Americans are fooled by these unqualified appointees. But that doesn't seem to stop him from nominating ill-prepared individuals to run crucial federal agencies.