An Update, Of Sorts, On John Berry

So, I've been curious about what happened to John Berry's potential nomination to head the Office of Personnel Management. The news that he was in serious talks or had been asked to take the position was greeted by uniformly positive reactions from the people I talked to, and then...nothing, and the appointment of an acting director at OPM.

I asked Beth Moten, the American Federation of Government Employees' legislative and political director yesterday at the union's legislative briefing yesterday what she thought the big wait was. Her answer? Not much. It's her understanding, Moten says, that Berry has been offered the job and has accepted it, but that the standard vetting process, likely heightened by the withdrawals of Tom Daschle and Nancy Killefer (not to mention Bill Richardson), is under way. This would actually be consistent with Obama's earlier pattern of leaking nominations, showing that they can resolve the issues surrounding them (Bill Clinton's foundation disclosure, for example), and then having fairly smooth confirmation hearings. Berry's nomination and confirmation, if they happen, won't be as big a deal as Clinton's, of course, and won't be a show of competence to many people besides those of us who work for and write about good government. But it still matters to get the process right.