President's Agenda Awards

In case you missed it, here's part of OPM Director Linda Springer's statement on this year's Presidential Rank Award winners:

These awards present a much-deserved opportunity to recognize those who have made significant progress in advancing the President’s Management Agenda while producing results for the American people...

At the risk of parsing these words too closely, here are a couple of observations:

  • The awards are now expressly for "advancing the President's Management Agenda," that is, furthering the political goals of the current administration? OPM's Web site says they're supposed to be for "exceptional long-term accomplishments" in a federal career. That's not the same thing.
  • Executives are to be commended for advancing the PMA "while producing results for the American people"? Is the administration suggesting that implementing the PMA and producing results for citizens is a heroic achievement--that is, that the two don't go hand in hand?

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