One more lesson from Oklahoma City

Tom Temin Commentary

One more lesson from Oklahoma City

Reading the inspector general's meta-report, you'd think there's nothing the government can do right. History says otherwise.

Tom Temin@tteminWFED

April 19, 2018 9:36 am

2 min read

On this day in 1995 the nation relearned what a twisted mind can do. A generation later, the bombing of the federal building in Oklahoma City retains the power to shock.

It also showed the necessity of institutional depth and strength. Telescoped in retrospect, the arrest, trial and eventual execution of Timothy McVeigh seem inevitable. The reality was messier. McVeigh didn’t go to the death chamber professing innocence. But it required a massive and painstaking effort to secure the conviction. Even so, the FBI later found evidence it should have presented to the defense. It wasn’t enough to convince the judge to spare him.

On the whole, the prosecution led by then-federal prosecutor Joseph Hartzler was done competently. He secured 11 first-degree murder convictions. He’d joined federal service after leaving a partnership in a big Chicago law firm. According to a 2011 article in the alumni magazine of Amherst College, Hartzler tried three more cases before moving on to more intellectual and less visceral appellate work.

Judge Merrick Garland, whom President Barack Obama nominated for the Supreme Court, also figured prominently in the case, managing the Justice Department’s investigation.

Institutions support, but the competence of individuals ultimately determines how things come out. Many, many individuals contributed to the resolution of the Oklahoma City bombing. The sharp cop who stopped VcVeigh for driving with no license plate. All those first responders who had to rummage for bodies and body parts.

I thought of this reading what the Council of Inspectors General on Integrity and Efficiency had to say in contemporary matters unrelated to Oklahoma City. CIGIE surveyed the annual reports of 61 individual agency IGs, trying to discern the governmentwide trends.

Seven challenges surfaced:

Information technology security and management
Performance management and accountability
Human capital management
Financial management
Procurement management
Facilities maintenance
Grants management.

You’re probably having the same reaction I had, namely, what’s left? What isn’t a problem for government?

At the Justice Department, where talented individuals got McVeigh and many others over the years, the inspector presented a long list of management problems for 2017. Some of the concerns are pretty basic, such as “safeguarding national security and ensuring privacy and civil liberties protections.” Like nearly every other agency, Justice also has human capital management problems.

Yet finding, retaining and taking care of the right people is ultimately what mitigates every other problem. Nobody like airlines or commercial airline service. But who’s not glad a cool-as-a-cucumber former Navy F-18 pilot was in the left seat the other day on that Southwest flight? She first got those wings in an organization with plenty of procurement, human capital and financial management problems.

So while remembering the evil that occurred on this day, don’t forget all the good people who, if they couldn’t make it right, at least looked after safety and justice.