Bloch-head

This morning, FBI agents searched the buildings of the Office of Special Counsel in Washington, D.C. and the home of its head, Scott Bloch. The OSC is in charge of defending government whistle-blowers and federal employees who bring discrimination complaints, and enforcing the Hatch Act to keep partisan activities by government workers in check. Bloch has been accused of deliberately incapacitating the OSC and reorganizing it for political reasons. He recently had a bunch of computers at the OSC and at his home wiped of data; the FBI is probably trying to move before Bloch destroys any more evidence.

We worry about warrantless wiretapping and electronic voting machine irregularities, but we like to think that there will be some unambiguous sign when our government really goes off the rails. That might not be the case. When the guy responsible for protecting whistle-blowers is retaliating against them in his own office it reminds us that our institutions decay one Bush appointee at a time. Thank God we’re getting a new decider this year.