The New York Times weighed in on this issue in an editorial today,
"Parks Under Siege", which deals mainly with other worrisome stewardship
issues, but concludes with this:

"More alarming still is a directive released last week that would
require park personnel who hope to advance above the middle-manager
level to go through what is essentially a political screening. What we
are witnessing, in essence, is an effort to politicize the National Park
Service - to steer it away from its long-term mission of preserving
much-loved national treasures and make it echo the same political
mind-set that turned Mr. Hoffman, a former Congressional aide to Dick
Cheney and a former head of the Cody, Wyo., chamber of commerce, into an
architect of national park policy."

So will the "facts be fixed around the policy" in the Park Service, as
we saw with the CIA? If we remove all the competent people with a
concern for the reasons why the agency exists in the first place, will
we get another FEMA? When does loyalty to the long-term interests of the
American people trump the short-term interests of whatever
administration happens to be in place, and what does a whistleblower do
in those circumstances?

No wonder the Park Service employees on this list haven't weighed in on
this question - they can't.

Carol Ely
Louisville
(my views, not necessarily those of my institution)

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