Alexis Simendinger is puzzled by the choice of Janet Napolitano to head the University of California system:
In Washington, her announcement Friday that she will leave President Obama’s Cabinet as secretary of the Department of Homeland Security to head UC came as something of a surprise, but not nearly as startling as her aside to reporters in March that she prefers the telephone over email. Her staff, she explained, has sorted through her in-box and advised her about essential information since her days as Arizona’s attorney general. The practice continued when she was sworn in as the state’s governor in 2003, she said.
“I think e-mail just sucks up time,” she said during a journalists’ roundtable sponsored by the Christian Science Monitor. “You get hundreds and hundreds of things all the time, and I was like, ‘Why am I spending my time scrolling through this and responding to stuff that doesn’t really need to be responded to?’ ” Napolitano explained. “I do a lot of my own work by phone.”
On Friday, her admirers called her an “unconventional choice” to head the university system, largely because her career evolved from law into politics, rather than into higher education. Napolitano earned her bachelor’s degree in political science from California’s Santa Clara University and her law degree from the University of Virginia. She was Obama’s choice to lead DHS in 2009, in part because of her law-and-order reputation as a Democratic governor of a Republican-dominated border state.
I’m surprised that he’s surprised. Like getting a plum job with Citigroup between advisory posts with Democratic administrations, becoming Congressman from the 5th Illinois Congressional district after serving as President Obama’s first chief-of-staff, or getting hired as chairman of Fannie Mae after being Bill Clinton’s director of OMB, the jobs are seen as sinecures, rewards for faithful service.
That the jobs might have actual duties that could be performed better by individuals with actual experience, training, expertise, or even (in some cases) interest is completely secondary. You’ve got to be able to reward the good soldiers.
I don’t understand why anyone is confused over her appointment; the UC system seems to favor lesbians for leadership roles.
Agreed, Dave. There is simply no case to be made that Napolitano is the best qualified person available to oversee a massive educational system. She’s being rewarded for faithful service with a highly paid, high stature postition which she will use to funnel an ever-growing share of resources to the salaries and free housing of administrators. Student welfare will be of secondary importance but that’s what we routinely see with these appointments of politically well-connected people.
Well stated, Ben. But, isn’t that the way of so many higher-up, government bureaucrats — it’s the bonus they receive for being loyal to their boss, no matter what party is involved. It can be likened to first class cronyism.