Would You Like Fries With Your Homeland Security?

TPM Muckraker, a new offering from Josh Marshall which goes deep into the weeds of the top stories, has dug up another example of White House cronyism at work:

The Bush administration continues its fight for the rights of the inexperienced by appointing them to important positions in DHS. The most recent example is Douglas Hoelscher, a 29-year-old former White House staffer with no management experience who was recently tapped to run the Homeland Security Advisory Council. AT HSAC, he'll be managing 20 different panels, comprised of senior industry officials and other mucky-mucks, which advise the administration on homeland security issues.

The author Justin Rood then finds his Friendster profile and does a good bit of gentle mockery. I don't think having a social networking site (I use MySpace plenty to promote my comedy appearances) automatically disqualifies you from public service. But you'd think that in the post-Brownie era, the Administration would value competence over cronyism. The entire DHS press release on Hoelscher lists exactly this on his credentials: "Hoelscher has served in the Administration since 2001.  He graduated from the University of Iowa in 1999, with honors, and holds a Bachelor of Arts degree in Political Science." Shane Harris, writing for the National Journal, adds that Hoelscher arranged Presidential travel while at the White House, and made about 30 grand a year. He also worked for the RNC and a couple state Republican parties.

Here's his entire background in Homeland Security:

In 2004, Hoelscher worked for the RNC. The following year he became Homeland Security's White House liaison, "obtaining information from the department," said Joanna Gonzalez, a department spokeswoman. During Katrina, he helped deploy volunteers from the department to the Gulf Coast, she said. The congressional report on Katrina noted that some of those employees had trouble making it to the region because of departmental miscommunications.

So his experience for the position of managing the Homeland Security Advisory Council is fucking up a homeland security emergency and working with Ken Mehlman once.

Maybe I'm being too hard on the White House. Maybe the reason they keep hiring inexperienced suck-ups with no management credentials for these positions is because there's nobody else around the White House to fill the job. When you demand loyalty to such an extreme level, that becomes the only bullet point on the resume that matters.