Cabinet Cleaning

Most of the discussion of the resignation of Christine "wind dummy" Whitman from the Environmental Protection Agency has centered around her reasons for leaving and her replacement. One of the names that has been floated by the administration is Josephine Cooper, the chief operating officer of the Alliance of Auto Manufacturers. Yes, you read that correctly. Hunter Thompson couldn't make this stuff up.

As to Ms. Whitman's reasons for leaving, I think TAPPED is probably onto something here.

But in truth, it won't really matter whom the White House picks to replace Whitman, for the very same reason Whitman resigned: With few exceptions, senior appointees at the cabinet departments and agencies have little role in forming policy anymore. The Bush administration, more than any in recent memory, has shifted decision-making away from senior appointees and towards K Street lobbyists; most big policy packages are put together behind closed doors, in meetings between senior White House personnel, industry officials, and the congressional leadership. For the most part, committee chairs, citizens groups, and senior appointees are have been frozen out.

How much influence did Secretary of Energy Spencer Abraham have over the Bush energy plan two years ago? Zip. Secretary of Education Rod Paige was a bit player on Bush's education bill, which was forged by White House aides Sandy Kress and Nina Rees. Nobody in Washington thinks that Treasury Secretary John Snow is anything more than a spokesman for tax cuts ginned up in the West Wing. And of course, Whitman found herself overruled early and often by the White House.

In many ways, this is really a sea change in Washington culture. It used to be that cabinet jobs were, to some extent, plum positions for up-and-coming politicians and a stepping-stone of sorts. That was what Whitman thought she was getting into. And there are still exceptions, primarily in foreign and military affairs: There, a secretary with enough prestige or influence, like Donald Rumsfeld, can actually build a power base and accomplish something on his own. But on domestic policy, the cabinet secretaries are increasingly irrelevant. In Bush's Washington, where government appointees don't actually make much policy, they are depositories for no-name hacks and mediocrities.

I imagine it has been a very dispiriting couple of years for Ms. Whitman. EPA chief is a post that takes tremendous heat from somebody, no matter what the policies are and now you don't even get to influence the policies? How degrading would that be? With this administration, she was more of a tackling dummy than a wind dummy. I really do feel sorry for her. Not as sorry as I feel for the environment, but still...