Obama Administration Weeding Out Bush Republicans from Civil Service?

Meredith Jessup | November 13, 2009 2:49 PM

The Washington Examiner, RedState and Instapundit all seem to think so. The Examiner reported yesterday about a new directive from the Office of Personnel Management (OPM) that would establish "a partisan political factor in hiring for career civil service positions in the federal bureaucracy."

"In no case may an agency make an appointment of the type described below without written authorization from OPM:
"A. The appointment of a current political Schedule A or Schedule C Executive Branch employee or a former political Schedule A or Schedule C Executive Branch employee who held the position within the last five years to a competitive or non-political excepted service position under title 5 of the U.S. Code.
"B. The appointment of a current Non-career SES Executive Branch employee or a former Non-career SES Executive Branch employee who held the position within the last five years to a competitive or non-political excepted service position under title 5 of the U.S. Code."

Since this new OPM policy is being made retroactive to cover the past five years, Erick Erickson at RedState says, "...if you worked for President Bush in the executive branch at any time during his second term in the White House, you may not be approved. The same applies if you worked for a Republican Member of Congress at any point during the past five years."

The memorandum goes on to apply this change to civil servants who were political appointees in the last five years, in effect freezing these employees out of other positions, denying them promotions, and forcing them out of their jobs.
No one is allowed to stand in the way of Barack Obama’s agenda, including his own bureaucracy. This is what happens in third world kleptocracies and totalitarian regimes.