Paul Light Disses Civil Service

NYU professor and frequent TV talking head Paul Light has been writing an occasional column for the Washington Post about the Presidential transition. In the most recent installment, Less Room for Breakthrough Ideas, one of the constraints on innovation he cited was not exactly respectful toward civil servants:

[P]residents can no longer rely on the federal government to faithfully execute the laws. The thin, agile government that drew so many young Americans to public service in the 1960s has become a sluggish shell in which risk-taking is punished, time on the job is rewarded, and political appointees are free to meddle as they wish. Without aggressive reform, which would itself be a breakthrough idea, the federal government simply cannot honor the promises Obama makes.