On Cozy Relationships

From this CBS story it would appear the MMS had a far too cozy relationship with those they were assigned to inspect:

Marcus Mouton inspected Deepwater Horizon June 9, 2009. Mouton told federal investigators he participated in skeet-shooting fundraisers where "various offshore companies sponsored a five person team.

"He said he had thought participating in the events was acceptable because many MMS employees including senior managers attended and participated in them. He explained he did not think offshore companies received any favors in exchange for inviting MMS inspectors to these events."

This is never a good idea, and management officials running MMS (and their Congressional overseers) should have developed a strong culture of avoidance. For Pete's sake, wining and dining the inspectors is the oldest trick in the book. So there is legitimate outrage over MMS's apparent failure to maintain that divide.

But if folks are outraged about that cozy relationship, why are they not equally outraged about behavior such as this from the people assigned to provide oversight on our federal government? These same folks seem to have lost interest in pursuing the potential bribes offered to Sestak or Romanoff and haven't the faintest bit of curiosity as to whether the president lied about the departure of his appointed chief of the MMS, Liz Birnbaum. The CBS story linked above doesn't even mention her.

Instead they see no problem frolicking at White House pool party with some of the people they're assigned to cover. As Dana Milbank recently alluded, despite her clear lefty biases and anti-semetism at least Helen Thomas was a professional reporter in the White House pool due to her adversarial style. Now even she's gone.