XBradTC

Our old buddy Dave in Texas went on a bit of a twitter rant yesterday.

 

And I can’t say I blame him.  The VA has always struggled to provide quality care for veterans. But the fact is, as Instapundit Glenn Reynolds notes, our modern civil service system, born out of disgust with the old spoils system, has simply transformed itself into a one-party spoils system.

The sprawling federal bureaucracy increasingly has come to see itself as beyond any oversight, not from the Congress, and to an extent, not from the White House.

Congressional staffers investigating allegations of wrongdoing at a Philadelphia VA office found themselves under surveillance and recording.

Congressional staffers investigating data falsification and whistleblower retaliation at the Department of Veterans Affairs regional office in Philadelphia were given a workspace there that was wired with activated audio microphones and video cameras, the chairman of the House Committee on Veterans’ Affairs said Monday.

Committee investigators also glimpsed a notebook used by the agency’s regional director that bore written instructions to ignore their requests for information, Rep. Jeff Miller, R-Fla., said during a late-night hearing.

And if you think this issue of the bureaucracy serving its own interests first and foremost is limited to the VA, you’re naïve.

It is inevitable that any organization, even those explicitly founded to provide service to others, will eventually become one that serves itself, even at the expense of its constituency.

What starts as as cause becomes a business and devolves into a racket.