The Current Wisdom

WE recently drew some shortterm duty at a federal agency, helping to run the place until the President could get his man confirmed. What started out as a two-week hitch turned and twisted and backslid into two months, which is to say that the entire process was accelerated to accommodate our quirky desire to return to the Private Sector. It was a learning experience, combining approximately equal parts frustration, ennui, and exhilaration. Herewith a few excerpts from the memory file.

The financial disclosure laws, reflecting as they do both the bureaucratic accretions of a generation and the extraordinary “reforms” catalyzed by Watergate, are draconian. To accept federal employment is to invite a stranger into the most private recesses of your financial affairs. Personnel officers are required to know what you make, what you own, indeed what you did with what you used to own. The forms are lengthy, detailed, and in many places ambiguous. Calculatedly ambiguous, we suspect. One is encouraged to err on the side of too much detail rather than too little: the candidate is set to serious form-filling only after being photographed and fingerprinted. (You are permitted to retain your belt, shoelaces, and sharp objects.)

About the Author

Neal B. Freeman

Neal B. Freeman, businessman and journalist, was a director of National Review Inc. for 38 years.

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WE recently drew some shortterm duty at a federal agency, helping to run the place until the President could get his man confirmed. What started out as a two-week hitch turned and twisted and backslid into two months, which is to say that the entire process was accelerated to accommodate our quirky desire to return to the Private Sector. It was a learning experience, combining approximately equal parts frustration, ennui, and exhilaration. Herewith a few excerpts from the memory file.

The financial disclosure laws, reflecting as they do both the bureaucratic accretions of a generation and the extraordinary “reforms” catalyzed by Watergate, are draconian. To accept federal employment is to invite a stranger into the most private recesses of your financial affairs. Personnel officers are required to know what you make, what you own, indeed what you did with what you used to own. The forms are lengthy, detailed, and in many places ambiguous. Calculatedly ambiguous, we suspect. One is encouraged to err on the side of too much detail rather than too little: the candidate is set to serious form-filling only after being photographed and fingerprinted. (You are permitted to retain your belt, shoelaces, and sharp objects.)