‘Berto, Skeletor and Clay Johnson

I’m sure you’ve all heard the news that Gonzales is resigning. (Why not remove the lightning rods well before the ‘08 election?) CNN International and a Time blog are reporting that “Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff is the odds-on favorite” to replace Gonzales, and that Clay Johnson, deputy director of the Office of Management and Budget, will take Chertoff’s Homeland job. Other AG candidates include Solicitor General Paul Clement, Senators Orrin Hatch and John Cornyn, and former Deputy Attorney General Larry Thompson.

My hair stood on end when I heard Clay Johnson’s name. Here’s what I wrote about Johnson in April 2005:
 

Buried deep in the reams of the new budget is a “sunset” provision that will permit a small commission — it will be a commission comprised of lobbyists and corporate executives — to kill the Environmental Protection Agency, the Food and Drug Administration, even the Securities and Exchange Commission.

The arch-assassin is Bush’s longtime friend Clay Johnson, “the most influential member of Bush’s inner circle whom you’ve never heard of,” and the Director of the obscure Office of Management and Budget.

[...]

Clay Johnson is an old hand at seizing power from bureaucratic government entities:

When Bush was elected governor of Texas in 1994, he put the buddy he calls “Big Man” — Johnson is six feet four — in charge of all state appointments. Johnson, a former executive at Neiman Marcus and Frito-Lay, refers to Americans as “customers” and is partial to Chamber of Commerce bromides such as “We’re in the results business.”

He is also partial to giving corporate lobbyists a direct role in gutting regulatory protections.

One of his first acts in Texas was to remove all three members of the state environmental-protection commission and replace them with a former Monsanto executive, an official with the Texas Beef Council and a lawyer for the oil industry.

Overnight, a commission widely respected for its impartiality became a “revolving door between the industry lobby and government,” says Jim Marston, the senior attorney in Texas for the nonprofit organization Environmental Defense.

[NOTE: The photo and pullquote are from the PBS Frontline profile of Clay Johnson.]

Great. Imagine Clay Johnson in charge of the responsibilities of the Dept. of Homeland Security:

Emergency preparedness and response (for both terrorism and natural disasters), including volunteer medical, police, Emergency Management and fire personnel;

Domestic intelligence activities, largely today within the FBI;

Critical infrastructure protection;

Border security, including both land and maritime borders;

Transportation security, including aviation and maritime transportation;
Biodefense;

Detection of nuclear and radiological materials;

Research on next-generation security technologies.

Imagine the audacity of it: “One of his first acts in Texas was to remove all three members of the state environmental-protection commission and replace them with a former Monsanto executive, an official with the Texas Beef Council and a lawyer for the oil industry.”

And he’d be in charge of FEMA? Might as well name a hurricane to head FEMA.

(If I have more time, I’ll search more for the specific things that Clay Johnson’s under-rated (in terms of its power) OMB has done to undermine the federal agencies under the umbrella of Homeland Security. Or if you do, please go for it. A great site to start is OMBWatch.org, an unsung but vital watch group.)