[Former President Bill] Clinton’s Secretary of State Warren Christopher ignored personnel policy and fired a woman who had plea-bargained to a felony count — of defrauding the State Department. She sued, she won, she got her job back, and got back pay. Why? Because, the court ruled, the Secretary of State can’t fire even a convicted felon.
To add one more level of institutionalized insanity, the Secretary of State does not even have any authority over personnel decisions, except for the small percent that are considered politically-appointable. All hiring, firing, transferring, and promoting is done by a panel of senior Foreign Service Officers (FSOs).
This is almost the archetype for a self selected elite who pursue their own interests instead of those of their host government. It’s hardly surprising that the State Department is far more concerned about “getting along” with their clients than aiding the foreign policy of the USA. At this point, only Congress can clean up this mess.
[source]
French President Jacques Chirac has complained about US President Bush’s support for Turkish EU membership.
Mr Chirac said George Bush had gone too far by saying Turkey should get a date for acceptance into the EU.
[…]
Speaking on the sidelines of the summit, Mr Chirac said this was none of Mr Bush’s business.
“Not only did he go too far, he ventured into territory which is not his concern,” he said.
Yes, Chirac would never tell the USA how to conduct it’s foreign relationships, like, say telling the USA how to run the occupation of Iraq, which France decided to not be involved with.
[source]
At a Milwaukee area high school, the school newspaper turned down a military recruitment ad on grounds it violated the ad policy, which bans businesses and organizations “deemed destructive to the social, economic and environmental health of the earth and all of its inhabitants.”
[the editor of the paper] also says the military is “both classist and racist in its approach.”
“I realize this is sort of absurd coming from a privileged, white male, but the recruitment sort of targets those with fewer opportunities,” Firer says.
So of course, the proper response is to prevent the military from fixing the problem by targeting those with more options, such as the students of this school in a wealthy neighborhood. Here we see the credo of the modern Left - “it’s all about my moral posturing”.