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Rush, RedState completely wrong about claim that Obama is purging Republicans

November 12, 2009 1:42 pm ET by Adam Shah

A post by RedState.com's Erick Erickson that Rush Limbaugh is hyping falsely claims that a memorandum from the federal Office of Personnel Management (OPM) will "purge the federal government of Republican civil servants" and "forc[e]" former Bush administration political appointees who currently have positions in the federal civil service "out of their jobs."

In fact, the OPM memo does nothing of the sort. It merely beefs up current OPM rules aimed at preventing political appointees from "burrowing in" to the civil service, thereby receiving the job security benefits that civil servants -- but not political appointees -- receive. While the memo states that agencies must seek permission from OPM to hire people as civil servants if they have been political appointees "within the last five years," nothing in the memo creates authority for anyone to fire current federal employees. Therefore, the OPM memo does not "purge" anybody.

Tags: Rush Limbaugh, The Rush Limbaugh Show, redstate.com, Erick Erickson

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    • Author by wookie (November 12, 2009 2:04 pm ET)
      4  
      I guess the US attorneys scandal is safely out of mind so the righties can go off on the subject of politically based firings.
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    • Author by epkklk851 (November 12, 2009 2:46 pm ET)
      1  
      In the lives of regular civil service employees, this isn't even a blip on our radar. Most civil service employees never even met an SESer, or a political appointee for that matter. Our participation in partisan politics is controlled by the Hatch Act and we generally aren't allowed to discuss politics at work (although some do.) Most of my co-workers are Republicans. The government would come to a standstill if all the Republicans were fired.
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      • Author by Jeremy Danials (November 12, 2009 3:36 pm ET)
        3  
        This is how you know that Rush-To-The-Pharmacy is a big, fat idiot; the constant fearmongering. Wanna know why he fears attacks on conservatism so much? Because under close scrutiny, all his accusations fall apart.
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    • Author by newzhound (November 12, 2009 4:08 pm ET)
         
      It is simply impossible to keep track of all Boss BlunderRush's lies, mis-statements, spins, and other distortions of fact.

      MM4A does a good job of trying, however.

      Today Ole BlunderRush stated that Nazi Germany started the Dachau Concentration Camp for unemployed workers in order to reduce the announced unemployment figure. He then compared to to Speaker Pelosi's alleged statement that people who don't buy health insurance should go to jail.

      A thinking person would find this much too close to Glum Bleek's FEMA camps.

      Boss BlunderRush is oblivious to how completely inappropriate it is to compare anything Nazi Germany did to anything the United State government does or might do. Period.

      The fact that this statement is a lie is almost besides the point, as the comparison is so outrageous. But his gullible audidence will continue to lap it up.
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    • Author by classicliberal2 (November 12, 2009 4:14 pm ET)
      1  
      Even if this was an outright purge, it's absolutely unbelievable that Limbaugh would complain about it after the Bush administration, which illegally used political considerations to purge huge numbers of career employees from the government, replacing them with people whose only "qualification" was loyalty to Bush. Porter Goss was imported into the CIA apparently for this very reason, and ripped the agency to shreds--huge numbers of experienced career people sent packing. The same thing happened at the Defense Department. At Justice, those who failed to demonstrate allegiance to Bush were passed over in hiring and promotion, and conservative activists used to fill the available slots. The Inspector General at Justice documented and condemned this practice--no one in the press cared to report it. The U.S. Attorney scandal was only a small part of the overall picture.

      This new Obama initiative seems aimed at Bush's practice, in his last days, of placing his loyal political appointees (who would otherwise have to get real jobs and actually work for a living) into senior civil service posts--it's called "burrowing," and it makes it difficult for the incoming administration to clear out the Bush rabble.

      It will be interesting to see if the press follows up on Limbaugh's rant and finally reports some of this.

      ---
      Left Hook! The Blog
      http://lefthooktheblog.blogspot.com/
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      • Author by classicliberal2 (November 12, 2009 4:18 pm ET)
           
        And, to be clear, a lot of these departments desperately need to be purged of these appointees. Employees with long experience were passed over and fired, replaced by people with no experience whose only "qualification" was, again, loyalty to Bush. Obama should clean house. He should have done it as soon as he was sworn in.

        ---
        Left Hook! The Blog
        http://lefthooktheblog.blogspot.com/
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    • Author by keydemo (November 12, 2009 4:57 pm ET)
         
      In fact, the OPM memo does nothing of the sort. It merely beefs up current OPM rules aimed at preventing political appointees from "burrowing in" to the civil service, thereby receiving the job security

      It seems to me political appointees and civalk servants should not have this job security and maybe then we will start to get a fair days work out of them.
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    • Author by BurceCarson2008 (November 13, 2009 2:24 am ET)
         
      It is unique, in the sense that it specifically adds the provision that people appointed by the executive branch in the last five years cannot be appointed without OPM permission, and not other branches of government. It extends this OPM review to five years, and this is new, and what is really unique is the inclusion of "former" executive branch employee. The first part of the memo is not new, the second part is new, and targets only those who worked for the Bush administration. So it does nut purge federal bureaucracy of Republicans, merely allows the OPM to review them before new ones are hired. Presumably, these right wingers think any former Republican executive branch employees will be turned down by the OPM. Hopefully, they are right.

      But yes, they are engaging in hyperbole, but MM dropped the ball as well. Personally, I don't know what the problem is, it's Obama's prerogative to keep any ex-Bush out of the federal government.
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    • Author by BurceCarson2008 (November 13, 2009 5:22 pm ET)
         
      It is unique, in the sense that it specifically adds the provision that people appointed by the executive branch in the last five years cannot be appointed without OPM permission, and not other branches of government. It extends this OPM review to five years, and this is new, and what is really unique is the inclusion of "former" executive branch employee. The first part of the memo is not new, the second part is new, and targets only those who worked for the Bush administration. So it does nut purge federal bureaucracy of Republicans, merely allows the OPM to review them before new ones are hired. Presumably, these right wingers think any former Republican executive branch employees will be turned down by the OPM. Hopefully, they are right.

      But yes, they are engaging in hyperbole, but MM dropped the ball as well. Personally, I don't know what the problem is, it's Obama's prerogative to keep any ex-Bush out of the federal government.
      Report Abuse