A Team of Bloggers

The Cable reports on a bunch of new names who are likely to enter the Pentagon*, thus beginning to fill out DoD's most senior civilian leadership ranks.

They're all interesting names, but one that stuck out at me is Phillip Carter, who will be Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Detainee Issues. The reason for this is that Carter, in addition to being a veteran and truly superb writer on military affairs, is...a blogger. (He's currently at the Washington Post, but wrote his own blog long before that.)

In fact, it turns out that there are actually a non-trivial number of bloggers in relatively senior-level administration positions. I don't think any Cabinet Secretaries count themselves among the blogging elite, but cabinet-level OMB Director Peter Orszag started a great blog back when he ran CBO (his posts were much more conversational than current Director Steve Elmendorf's -- sorry, Steve!). There's also some law bloggers joining the ranks of government, such as Marty Lederman at DoJ's Office of Legal Counsel and Cass Sunstein at OMB's Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs. I'm pretty sure a few of Obama's National Security appointments have been Democracy Arsenal alums. And Joe Biden's office may as well be sitting in the basement with its pajamas covered in Cheeto dust! Spokesman/press wrangler Jay Carney was a Swamplander, and top economic advisor Jared Bernstein held court at Talking Points Memo (literally!) before joining the administration. Sanjay Gupta sort-of-counts, if he's ever officially appointed Surgeon General. Am I missing anyone?

I note this all because actual, successful blogging requires a much different kind of voice and relationship with "the public" than we're accustomed to seeing in government. It involves pulling back the curtain on process, being self-effacing, and recognizing that good ideas and noteworthy arguments mostly start in other places -- all traits that you don't get from most agency communications shops. So here's hoping that the culture of blogging trickles down, in some small measure, from these elite few to the whole bureaucracy. The idea of a government full of bloggers may scare the pants off of some folks, but for my money, it's an incredibly effective medium for letting people know more about your mission, why you do what you do, and where your head is at on any given day -- and don't we all wonder where government's head is at from time to time?

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* Doesn't "Enter the Pentagon!" sound like a phrase that should kick off a cage wrestling match?