Thoughts from Kansas

Although "So's your old man" is a wonderfully effective argument, let's stipulate that political patronage is always subject to abuse whenever there is insufficient oversight and when people don't seem to care whether qualified individuals are appointed to positions of responsibility.

In looking at these two instances, however, I'm inclined to think that any Israeli citizen would be a potentially good appointment to a homeland security post. Israel has universal military service and training. Any Israeli must be sensitized to issues of terrorism and measures to counter it. Perhaps McGreevey's appointment was not the best, but it could hardly have been the worst.

Romney, on the other hand, is appointing a numbers man to be the chief of a stem cell research funding board. Not as auditor or controller, but as chief. You'd think the head of a board charged with doling out stem cell research funds would have a modicum of expertise in evaluating competing research proposals and some familiarity with the pertinent science instead of ... none.

Romney is merely pandering to an electoral bloc he hopes will join his base of support. It is purely a political ploy and shows his disdain for the science that is at stake.

Posted by: Zeno | December 2, 2006 2:24 PM

Is that true about mormons?

Posted by: Steve | December 3, 2006 8:34 AM

Will Deval Patrick be able to reverse or otherwise limit the damage of this appointment when he takes office?

Jim McGreevey... just the usual cronyism and patronage both parties engage in?

It would be a case of exceptional corruption, which is why the Cipel appointment-- along with the other corruption allegations-- forced Jim McGreevey's resignation.

I mean, the fact McGreevey was romantically involved with Cipel makes it corruption. The fact Cipel was Israeli has absolutely nothing to do with anything, and Cipel's previous association with the IDF was well publicized as a reason for bringing him on in the first place. (In fact, as far as I can tell, it was his only qualification.)

The "both parties" talking point, where someone tries to distract from problematic behavior by one party by desperately trying to link it to a case where some member of the other party did something bad at some time in the past, is particularly insiduous because it normalizes corruption. We are supposed to overlook Mitt Romney's misbehavior because some Democrat misbehaved once, so that is supposed to somehow make it okay. In fact, no matter how bad the Democrats could hypothetically be, it would not excuse bad behavior by the Republicans, and we ought to be working to a point where it isn't "both parties do it" but "the marginalized dregs of both parties do it".

Of course, who winds up getting marginalized doesn't seem to be quite entirely consistent in reality. For example, while Jim McGreevey resigned in disgrace over his corruption, Mitt Romney remains a major contender for the 2008 Republican presidential nomination; and neither Romney's appointment of an unqualified nonscientist (apparently chosen because of an ideological opposition to certain aspects of the science he's supposed to be overseeing funding for), nor any of the countless similar appointments by anti-science Republicans in recent years, will be widely noticed as corruption in the first place.

Posted by: Coin | December 5, 2006 3:58 PM

McGreevey isn't just a corrupt individual; the Democratic Party in New Jersey makes the Soprano family look like choirboys.

I personally wouldn't know; I spend very little time thinking about New Jersey. However, assuming that you're trustworthy and correct about this, then now we're up from "the ex-governor of New Jersey is corrupt" to "the whole Democratic party of New Jersey is corrupt". Okay, so what? Again, the entire Democratic party could be one great den of thieves and liars, and it wouldn't make thievery and lying by Republicans okay. There remains no point in even bringing this stuff in New Jersey up unless for whatever reason you're just trying to distract everyone from thinking about what Mitt Romney did.

Posted by: Coin | December 7, 2006 3:56 PM