I’ve always considered it the heighth of hipocrisy of the Republicans to bring up cronyism or in the above case, nepotism as a reason to denegrate Democrats.

Isn’t that what the whole Joe Wilson/Valerie Plame story was really about as far as the Republicans? Wasn’t that what VP Cheney wrote on his copy of the NY Times op-ed by Wilson? The charge by the White House as Plame’s name began circulating to reporters was “Why was Wilson sent to Niger? Oh, it was his wife at the CIA.” Nepotism was their charge, inaccurate as it was due to the fact she wasn’t the actual person to approve of his trip.

But the fact remains that the Bush Administration and Republicans in general are masters at the art of cronyism and nepotism.

I am a federal civil servant working for the AF. I am a highly trained Middle East specialist, PhD, fluency in Arabic and Turkish, years of experience in the region, widely published in scholarly journals on historical and cultural issues, with proper clearances, etc. Three years a go I received an e-mail from DOD saying that they had been combing their personnel files looking for expertise on Iraq and the Middle East and, in light of my background, would I be interested in helping with the “reconstruction” of Iraq. I replied, “Yes, in principal.” That was the last I heard from DOD, not even a negative reply, despite several follow up iquiries from me. Meanwhile, as the director of an air museum, I have been spending much of my time quite literally chasing birds from airplanes. I wonder if the Washington Post story helps explain this?