When I posted at the end of April that the book had closed on Lurita Doan, former head of the General Services Administration, (GSA) apparently I was wrong. She has resurfaced in interviews in GovExec magazine, on Federal News Radio and most recently in this border-line ludicrous column in Federal Computer Week by Neal Fox, the former assistant commissioner of acquisition at the GSA. Now I've come across some interesting spin in Washington in my time here, but I think this one has to take the cake. There are too many strange, misleading, and frustratingly vague statements (e.g. "Some people who had backed IGs began to have doubts.") in Fox's article to jump into all of them (Beverley Lumpkin over at POGO has a good rundown refuting many of them that is worth reading). But the overall tone of the piece implies that IG offices are a danger to good government and need to be reigned in. This perspective needs to be soundly dismissed. Fox's main point seems to be that a thirsting for power and arrogance at the IGs office was the main issue at GSA, not any particular issue or problem they were investigating (and there were plenty). Fox's point is mind-numbingly ironic considering many of the actions the IGs office was investigating can not be seen as anything else than a power grab by a pretty arrogant Ms. Doan herself (see strong-arming contracting officers and side-stepping contracting protocols to help friends). Worst of all, Doan's unprecedented actions to attempt to cut the IG office's budget and outsource its contracting oversight responsibilities to, of all places, private contractors, was a deliberate attempt to keep prying eyes away from her attempts to operate on her own outside of federal laws and regulations. I'm still hopeful, as I think POGO was at first glance, that vague assertions and unsubstantiated ramblings like those contained in Fox's article won't influence anyone (that would be a shame). In these times of poor oversight and significant corruption and incompetence in the federal government, we need strong IG offices more than ever to help develop a more effective and accountable government.