The Washington Post is having a fit—actually another fit: “How Trump is stretching laws to make the federal government more political.”

Where to begin?

The irony—or if you prefer, the . . . gall: WaPo objecting to politics in an administration? You can’t make this stuff up.

They accuse President Trump of planning “to transform the federal government into a leaner operation packed with his loyalists.”

Well, yes. He campaigned on shrinking the government (dismantling the deep state) for the purpose of expanding the people’s freedom. Nothing new there. And who’s he expected to populate his administration with? His enemies?

“His executive orders could transform an experienced, merit-based federal bureaucracy into one governed by employees with political allegiance to the Trump administration.” There’s a lot hidden in that sentence: the implication is that the current workers have no political allegiances. Is there any sentient adult in Washington who believes that?

“‘These actions are opening much more of the civil service to be chosen by the Trump administration than would be usually seen during a change in administration,’ said Kevin Owen, a Washington-area employment lawyer who represents federal employees.” Pass the smelling salts—but can you imagine the Post writing that sentence if the new civil service employees were to be chosen by Barack Obama? Please.

“[C]ritics say that in his rush to reshape the government, Trump is trampling on the law—and quickly eroding more than a century of work by Congress to create a nonpartisan, skilled professional workforce that’s not beholden to any president.”

That’s really the crux of the matter: the blatant and shameless implication that the current bureaucracy is nonpartisan. Is there anyone—even Goldilocks?—who believes that?

“Trump’s team is relying on a variety of tools to winnow down and reshape the workforce. Many are untested in modern law and will shift power to political appointees in ways that experts say will bring loyalty tests to a nonpartisan government.” Nonpartisan? What is the Post talking about?

Has anyone looked at how the District of Columbia and Northern Virginia voted in the last election? In 2024, 92.5 percent of Washington, D.C., voters voted for Harris; and only 6.6 percent for Trump. Fairfax County, Va. (closest to Washington, D.C.), went 66 percent for Harris, and 31.3 percent for Trump. And we are meant to think all those people are nonpartisan?!

“Among Trump’s first orders was to reinstate a policy widely known as Schedule F, originally issued at the end of his first term, that removes civil service protections from career employees in policy roles—potentially allowing the president to replace nonpartisan professionals with political loyalists.” More “nonpartisan” nonsense—a drum that has to be banged incessantly in order to try to convince the reader that there’s a scandal in here… somewhere.

“The new administration has also begun skirting personnel rules [oooh] that require senior executives’ performance to be evaluated by a panel of career and political employees—instead, putting political appointees in charge. The system ‘goes from being nonpartisan to requiring a political litmus test: Are you supporting the administration?’ one senior executive in government said.” Still banging the “nonpartisan” drum.

The Post goes on: “Those who have served in government said Trump’s ‘shock and awe’ strategy may end up harming his administration’s own interests by chasing out career employees with years of experience and expertise.”

And “‘[t]hey may feel like they’re targeting their perceived enemies, but they need to realize that the career people may not love their agenda, but they will implement it,’ said Jim Secreto, who was deputy chief of staff at the Commerce Department under Biden.”

But that, of course, is precisely the question, if it still really is a question: will the career staff implement Trump’s program? Or will they slow-walk everything they can in order to defeat implementation of Trump’s plans? What’s more likely?

When the writer of this column was serving as general counsel of the Department of Education during the Reagan administration, he wrote a memo discussing civil rights issues and used the word “political” in its philosophical sense, not its partisan, vote-getting sense. The memo was extracted from the wastebasket by a “career employee with years of experience and expertise” and leaked to the Washington Post and the New York Times in the hope of embarrassing the Reagan administration. In due course, the “nonpartisan bureaucrat” was identified and duly punished.

Why does the Post persist in writing about federal workers as if they were nonpartisan when everyone knows they aren’t? The legacy media is vanishing because this drivel is all they produce.

The Post’s owner, Amazon’s Jeff Bezos, is a bright guy, a clever gazillionaire. The Post’s finances may be only small change in his pocket, but you might think the challenge of running a successful paper would inspire him to make it a paper people read—and believe. He’s the one who should be having the hissy fit—about his reporters and their coverage.

It’s the Washington Post’s stables that need to be cleaned out.

Daniel Oliver is Chairman Emeritus of the Board of the Education and Research Institute and a Director of the Pacific Research Institute for Public Policy in San Francisco. In addition to serving as Chairman of the Federal Trade Commission under President Reagan, he was Executive Editor and subsequently Chairman of the Board of William F. Buckley Jr.’s National Review.

Email Daniel Oliver at Daniel.Oliver@TheCandidAmerican.com.