The Faceless Bureaucrat: DOGE and the war on the Career Civil and Foreign Services

Let me start with the proposition that DOGE’s war on the career civil and foreign services is not about waste, fraud, and abuse. It is about removing obstacles to rule by edict by an imperial Presidency. It is about undermining the rule of law.

When pressed for examples of gross government abuse by petty bureaucrats during a phone-in town hall, all Virginia representative John McGuire, a first term Republican from my district, could muster was a federal grant to study cat cannibalism. I did not fact check completely, however, but the study he referenced may have been the same cat experiments reported by the media in 2016, and stopped. .Not exactly the jaw dropping example I expected. In fact, his example undercut his argument greatly about DOGE’s effectiveness.

Hunting down waste, fraud, and abuse is a red herring. The goal is to turn faceless federal bureaucrats into scapegoats, criminals, lazy, unqualified, fat cats, who lounge all day at home in their pajamas while living large off the teats of taxpayers. The fact is the vast, vast majority are hardworking, patriotic, folks, many of whom risk life and limb. Let me tell you about four faceless bureaucrats that I worked with:

The first, a classmate and fellow special agent, was returning home from war-torn Beirut to be a groomsman in another classmate’s Christmas holidays wedding.  He died over Lockerbie, Scottland along with another agent on PAN AM flight 103.  Another colleague and friend of mine died in Baghdad during a rocket attack.  A year later, a fourth colleague died in Mosul when his motorcade was hit by a complex attack followed by a vehicle borne suicide bomber.  Another colleague was in Benghazi when the Ambassador and a communications officer died during an attack on the consulate. He evacuated to another complex and was on the roof defending the complex when a mortar round exploded nearby, concussing him, one leg tethered to his by by shards of skin. He survived. I came to know him as he recovered in hospital. All of them are patriots, they were all veterans, they answered their countries call to serve. They all had families. Till now they were all faceless bureaucrats to you. We knew them, we honored them, we served with them. f

Faceless bureaucrats like these go to work everyday in America and around the world, in every cline, facing every possible danger. Scientist virus hunters in the Congo, climatologists in Antartica, Hot Shot jumpers going into fight massive forest fires, special agents fighting cartels in Mexico with their Mexican counterparts, park rangers rescuing or searching for lost or missing hikers in inhospitable terrain and conditions.

Faceless bureaucrat are a target of DOGE because a non-partisan career civil and foreign service are an important component of a liberal democracy. They are a bulwark against illegal and unconstitutional acts and orders. They swear an oath to defend the Constitution, their loyalty is to the people. They are essential to maintaining the rule of law, not man.