MONICA GOODLING + MOOSEBURGERS = FEDERAL HIRING IN A PALIN-McCAIN ADMINISTRATION

Here's a preview of how the federal government will be staffed if Palin and McCain win:

Gov. Sarah Palin lives by the maxim that all politics is local, not to mention personal.

So when there was a vacancy at the top of the State Division of Agriculture, she appointed a high school classmate, Franci Havemeister, to the $95,000-a-year directorship. A former real estate agent, Ms. Havemeister cited her childhood love of cows as a qualification for running the roughly $2 million agency.

Ms. Havemeister was one of at least five schoolmates Ms. Palin hired, often at salaries far exceeding their private sector wages....

The Wasilla High School yearbook archive now doubles as a veritable directory of state government. Ms. Palin appointed Mr. Bitney, her former junior high school band-mate, as her legislative director and chose another classmate, Joe Austerman, to manage the economic development office for $82,908 a year. Mr. Austerman had established an Alaska franchise for Mailboxes Etc. ...

Of course Palin is going to get deeply involved in hiring if she and McCain are elected -- she's the vigorous, driven one, and she's the one who's always been ideologically and tactically in sync with McCain's new handlers.

The hiring might not be as ideological as what Monica Goodling oversaw in the Bush Justice Department, or what was done in staffing the Coalition Provisional Authority in Iraq, but Palin's pals are going to start showing up at fairly high levels in a Palin-McCain presidency.

So if you've really appreciated the Bush administration's disdain for the notion that competence, experience, and a reserve of relevant knowledge ought to be considered in hiring, a Palin-McCain administration is just what you're looking for. Four more years!