A Fine Whine

Digby brought this post by Billmon to my attention, and it deserves repeating. It seems Team Obama is clearing out 90 or so Bush political appointees from the Pentagon, and one of their bigwigs, a feller by the name of Jim O'Beirne, is amongst them and crying a river. If the last name rings a bell, it's because he's the husband of Kate O'Beirne, a scary proposition in her own right.

Anyhow, Billmon cites a story about a leaked email where he's commiserating with his fellow loyal Bushies about their depending departure. But Billmon notes that this isn't the first time we've heard of O'Beirne: he was one of the original players in the disaster called the Coalition Provisional Authority in Iraq. Yes, it was his office that made appointments not on expertise or knowledge of the Mideast, but by asking candidates questions such as: " Did you vote for George W. Bush in 2000? Do you support the way the president is fighting the war on terror? Two people who sought jobs with the U.S. occupation authority said they were even asked their views on Roe v. Wade."

And as if you couldn't see this coming:

O'Beirne made it clear in the email that in some cases of dismissal, he thinks the employee's politics played a role in their being let go. [And he told the employees they could] "content yourself with the likelihood that it was your outstanding performance as a Bush appointee that drew the opposition's attention to you."

Who can top Billmon's comment?: "What can you say? Your modern conservative movement: Clueless, humorless, self-absorbed assholes, right to the bitter end." Really, is there a picture of O'Beirne in the dictionary right next to the word "myopic"?