What Government Got Wrong and Right in 2011

Ed O'Keefe of the Washington Post has a pair of posts up this week looking back at the year that's rapidly coming to a close: One examines government's biggest "oops" moments and the other, conversely, looks at what the feds got right in 2011.

We've covered the "oops" list before. It includes the serial near-shutdowns of government, the Federal Aviation Administration's seemingly endless travails, and the Office of Personnel Management's USAjobs.com snafu.

The "good" list, on the other hand, includes disaster response, hiring reform and efforts to cut backlogs in such areas as Freedom of Information Act requests.

And there's one slight oddity: the subject of waste, fraud and abuse in federal programs, and the effort to combat it, actually makes both lists. I guess that's one area where a little bit of improvement still leaves a long way to go.