Gov. Deval Patrick has discovered somewhat belatedly that he has been attempting to change the face of state government all the while leaving many of the same old faces in place.
So we have no quarrel with the letters sent out this week to some 50 agency heads, notifying them to reapply for their jobs should they be interested in continuing in office. But as with any blanket order, there are distinctions that have to be drawn.
~Snip~
On the other hand, there are posts that cry out for a change of leadership, where years of excuses have already taken their toll, where change happens at a glacial pace. That would pretty much describe the Department of Social Services under Commissioner Harry Spence. How long after the abuse of Haleigh Poutre and the death of Rebecca Riley should it take to put medical teams in place to evaluate children that come to the attention of DSS? Spence isn’t getting the job done. He needs to leave.
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Rudy Giuliani got the worst of this debate, in my view. He gave a confused answer on Roe v Wade, saying it "would be OK" if it were overturned and then implying it would be equally OK with him if it weren't. I am pro-choice, but Roe is clearly bad law and should be overturned with regulation of abortion (and almost everything else that government regulates) left to the states as their own "laboratories of democracy". Someone who wants to be President has to be able to take a stand on an issue that important, especially when he knows its the issue that most GOP primary voters are uncertain about when it comes to him. He said the Alternative Minimum Tax needed to be "adjusted" where the others who mentioned it said it should be eliminated. He gave a wishy-washy answer on the Terri Schiavo case, saying it should have been decided in a court. (Either the government had a role there or it didn't...and in case you're confused, the answer is it didn't.) Giuiliani seemed less energized and less charismatic than he usually does, and I think the debate was a negative for him.
The GOP debate: Missing Fred Thompson
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OK, we can all agree that Harry Spence is not getting the job done. So what’s the next guy going to do better? The editorialist fusses that the DSS should have more medical teams in place to evaluate possible abuse victims. But that just piles up more information that a bureaucracy cannot handle. The problem is more fundamental: government is manifestly unsuited to raising children. DSS should be scrapped. The poor little children it is holding captive — including Haleigh Poutre — should be freed and spared further abuse. The whole works should be turned over to private agencies.