Kleptocracy

It's not just the kleptocracy that bothers me, it's the way they aren't even shy about it.

The timing was perfect: On Nov. 23 -- exactly three weeks after the election and as a flurry of top Bush administration officials announced their departures -- the Office of Government Ethics declared that it was relaxing prohibitions on lobbying by former Cabinet secretaries and other top officials.

Until now, senior officials at Cabinet departments and agencies had not been allowed to lobby former colleagues for a full year after leaving office -- a rule designed to prevent an obvious conflict of interest. But, in a notice in the Federal Register, the ethics office issued a new rule invoking its power to declare that "a former senior employee who served in a 'parent' department or agency is not barred . . . from making communications to or appearances before any employee of any designated component of that parent."

Specifically, the Department of Homeland Security "requested that the [Ethics] Director designate seven distinct and separate components in DHS," including the Secret Service, the Coast Guard, the Transportation Security Administration, and the Emergency Preparedness and Response functions. The Justice and Treasury departments made similar requests.

These changes were so urgent that the ethics office found that "good cause exists for waiving the general requirements for notice of proposed rulemaking, opportunity for public comment and . . . a 30-day delayed effective date."

Because, after all, all those resigned senior officials are going to need to pay their rent right away. How could we possibly expect them to wait a whole year before going back to lobby their former departments? Why would lobbying firms even want to hire these poor out-of-work sods if they couldn't go lobby their old cronies? This is compassionate conservatism, doing away with burdensome government regulation! Yippee!