'Anything Goes' Administration (Washington Post Editorial)

In olden days, the president -- or Congress -- would put a stop to this.

  Washington Post Editorial 

  Oct. 2, 2006 -- THE INTERIOR Department's inspector general says the department suffers from an "anything goes" ethical culture.

  "Simply stated, short of a crime, anything goes at the highest levels of the Department of the Interior," Inspector General Earl E. Devaney told a House Government Reform subcommittee last month. "Ethics failures on the part of senior department officials -- taking the form of appearances of impropriety, favoritism and bias -- have been routinely dismissed with a promise 'not to do it again.' "

  "They are trying to crash our party and we need to beat the [expletive deleted by IG] out of them in front of all the other would-be party crashers who are standing on the front lawn waiting to see how we welcome these dirtbags," the Reading First program director, Chris Doherty, wrote about one company in an e-mail to staff members.

  Mr. Doherty, you won't be surprised to learn, just left the department to "return to the private sector."

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