We don't have any doubt that George W. Bush will pick the "best person" he can find to serve as the new chief financial officer for the Department of Homeland Security. And if that "best person" just happens to be the brother of an informal advisor to the president who has been implicated in the Jack Abramoff scandal, well, life is full of funny coincidences, isn't it?
With a tip of the War Room helmet to Josh Marshall, we note word that the president plans to name David L. Norquist as the new CFO for DHS. As UPI reports, Norquist is the younger brother of Grover Norquist, the antitax crusader who would like to see the federal government shrunk down so small you could drown it in a bathtub, just as soon as he and Abramoff are done profiting from it.
To be fair, Grover Norquist's little brother seems more qualified for his job than some of the other appointees Bush has installed at DHS recently. Earlier this month, the president named, by way of a recess appointment, a lawyer named Julie Myers to lead DHS's Immigration and Customs Enforcement section. Her primary qualification: She is the daughter of former Joint Chiefs of Staff chairman Richard Myers and the wife of the chief of staff for Homeland Security chief Michael Chertoff. Norquist, by contrast, can actually claim some credentials for his new job at DHS. He is currently the deputy undersecretary of defense for budget and appropriations affairs, and he worked previously in other money posts at the Pentagon and as a staffer on the House Appropriations Committee.
Still, Washington is full of people who know how to count money, and you'd think that a White House that's still stonewalling reporters on its contacts with Abramoff would be able to find one a little farther removed from the fray.
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