Herding cats at State

Joel Mowbray has a good essay on the challenges Condoleezza Rice faces reining in the out-of-control foreign service bureaucracy at State, and about whether or not she is up to the task (good intentions notwithstanding).

In naming Condoleezza Rice as his pick for Secretary of State, President Bush is sending his most loyal adviser to his most disloyal agency: the State Department. But no matter what changes she makes—and many are needed—the bureaucracy at State is entrenched almost to the point of being impenetrable, meaning real reform could well prove illusory.

Ms. Rice will soon take the reins of a massive 47,000-employee operation that is literally sprawled out across the world. It is an insular institution that operates remarkably similarly from one administration to the next, typically viewing presidents, as one Foreign Service Officer puts it, as the “summer help.”

State's "insular" arrogance didn't spring up overnight, and it is not likely that reform can take root quickly, but I'd sure like to see Rice have a go at it. It would be worth the price of admission to hear the squeals of rage coming from the lifers there.