The Dept of State - bumbling clowns

That is, for personal reasons involving the adoption of my grandson, about the mildest thing I can think to call them. After watching how the State Dept carried out a political agenda to screw hapless American citizens, proved absolutely unresponsive until forced to correct the mistake, and then lied about it, and continues to come up with fresh lies about it, the following news story on Talking Points Memo about how Dept of State employees checked into Obama, Clinton, and McCain's passport records makes perfect sense. It certainly sounds familiar: the same suspect behavior, the same secrecy as to who was doing what, the same contempt for transparency, and above all, the start of the same lies to cover their ass.

This comment from a reader of the above linked story seems to have it about right:

-Mismanagement. You’ll recall that the whole US passport program was in disarray at the end of 2007 because the Bush Administration failed to plan for the Canada-Mexico-Carribean travel changes. Waits were stretching on for months. It’s possible these offending contractors may have been brought in to fill the gaps that the Bush Administration allowed to happen.

-Mismanagement II. You’ll also recall that Condi Rice refuses to take even symbolic responsibility for the day-to-day management of State. Blackwater contract? US Embassy in Baghdad? Contractor fraud? Cookie Krnogard? (A Relevant Article from the Post)

-Cover Up. Someone at State knew and didn’t report it up the chain. If a system was installed to track this information, then surely SOMEONE thought it to be important. So where did the info stop, or who suppressed it and why?

I may hold my nose if necessary to vote for anybody the now clinically deranged Democratic Party can put up for President so I can be sure that clowns like this are purged from the ranks of the federal bureaucracy, once the wonder and envy of the world. At least for those of us who knew something about the workings of bureaucracies.