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Quick fact: Fox Nation pushes Limbaugh's false claim that Obama is "purging Republicans from civil service"

November 12, 2009 7:47 pm ET — 4 Comments

Fox Nation advanced the false claim pushed by RedState.com's Erick Erickson and repeated by Rush Limbaugh that President Obama is, in Fox Nation's words, "Purging Republicans from Civil Service."

The November 12 Fox Nation post, which links to a HotAirPundit blog post featuring video and transcript of Limbaugh's November 12 claims, in which he read from Erickson's post:

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Fact: OPM memo does not deal with jobs that former political appointees already hold

In the memorandum cited by Limbaugh and Erickson, Office of Personnel Management (OPM) director John Berry does not address the current job of any civil-service employee. Rather, he directs federal agencies beginning January 1, 2010 to "seek prior approval from OPM before they can appoint a current or recent political appointee to a competitive or non-political excepted service position at any level" if that individual has been a political appointee within the previous five years. This requirement applies to current Obama administration appointees as well as Bush administration appointees who served during that period. Furthermore, the memo explicitly states that "political appointees may not be excluded from consideration for Federal jobs because of their political affiliation."

Fact: OPM already reviews hiring of some political appointees

Federal law requires agencies to seek OPM approval for some positions during presidential election years. OPM's review of hiring had previously been limited to jobs at the Senior Executive Service level during years in which presidential elections are held. The policy change expands that practice to employees at all levels every year.

— M.G.
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    • Author by my4cents (November 12, 2009 9:19 pm ET)
         
      If there are 'political' appointees in civil service, they should be purged, whether Democratic or Republican.
      Who decides whether an appointment is 'political'? If the President does it, so be it.
      Better than political appointees (like Rove) doing it.
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      • Author by epkklk851 (November 13, 2009 9:48 am ET)
           
        Political appointments usually serve directly under the President or his staff, and Cabinet, and members of Congress. Some ambassadors are political appointees and some are career. If the country is big and rich, the ambassador is a political appointee, small, poor countries usually have career State Department people as ambassadors. They usually resign and go home when there is a change of administration. Most civil service employees are in non-political positions. I think it is fair for an office holder to be able to choose his staff and his support staff from his own people. Many of the people at the White House are not political appointments and will go on cooking the meals, mending the linen, repairing and maintaining the building, regardless of who is sitting in the Oval Office. After Garfield was assassinated by a job seeker, they took apart the spoils system and replaced it with a professional and non-political civil service.
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      • Author by mari2jj (November 13, 2009 8:28 pm ET)
           
        Actually, my party is just disgusted that they lost to Obama by such a wide margin. They are led by a bunch of talk jokers who feel they have a right to rule the world. Most of these jokers cannot even manage their own lives. Overweight, mouthy, rude and silly. But they are a burden our party seems stuck with. However, many moderates have already bolted the party and some of us are pondering it now. People like Rush and Hannity and Beck do not speak for us. They are rude, crude and hateful and a total embarrassment to most of us. None of them have come to grips with the fact that G. W. Bush has set Republican governance back into the dark ages. His father was entirely different and he left office with the respect of the nation in tack. Not so with G. W. Poor thing. He does seem to be at the stage in his life though when what he is now doing seems to suit him. And, good for him, I say! He is a ex-President with real class!
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    • Author by Samurai Cowboy (November 13, 2009 7:48 pm ET)
         
      Is this like when Bush ordered the Veterans Affairs to automatically deny disability claims to Veterans because they voted Democrat in elections. I know that I was turned down without explanation in 2007, and am now caught in the backlog of over 400,000 other Vets waiting for disability.
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