The rank incompetence pursued by the Bush Administration was designed to destroy any confidence in government efforts in our lives - paving the way for the laissez-faire miracle that was supposed to solve all of life's problems. Or at least those of the upper 1%.
One problem in seeking the ever elusive "accountability" of the last administration, and of holding the new administration as accountable as we should is the lack of any genuine leverage over those who manage the departments and offices of the federal government. Its all just so "political".
It is time to require professional licenses of those who head federal offices. Licenses that can require ethical conduct, oversight, training and the review of unethical behavior by a governing body, much as the legal profession is licensed and subject to disciplinary proceedings before the state supreme courts.
Licensing gives we, the public, some guarantee that persons of minimum training and abilities are candidates for high level positions, not just those with political access or close friendships with the POTUS. It requires adherence to codes of conduct that can be objective measures of job performance. The violation of professional conduct risks revocation of the license and banning from holding similar appointed position in the future.
No more Arabian Horse Association flunkies in charge of FEMA. No more unqualified recent graduates from make-believe law schools - because the professional license would be as strenuous and separate from legal licenses as legal licenses are from medical licenses. No more using the threat of imprisonment as the only motivator for securing fair and honest administration of the laws. No more settling for "what I can get away with" as the standard of good public stewardship.
Look at the confirmation hearings for the federal positions Obama is still trying to fill. Each one is becoming a comical political football. If there were objective standards on "fitness for office" the Senate would have the actual file of the candidate to review and a history of public service. Sure there will be the occasional tax or nanny issue, but currently there is no means to assure that the president's brother in law isn't appointed to head EPA.
When we have people making decisions about upwards to trillions of dollars and the lives of citizens in the balance of their decisions. Wouldn't it be better to have at least the beginnings of a professional class of persons trained and supervised to provide basic competence in our national affairs.