Sigh. Institutionalizing Perpetual Idiocy Again

By creating an office for enforcing "professionalism" instead of demanding it from subordinates and firing those that don't exhibit it, we're now ensuring that every subordinate command can now wash their hands of this - "It's not my job; that's for the Senior Advisor for Military Professionalism!"

How much you want to bet that this office grows to 20-25 folks at O-5 or higher and becomes impossible to kill in subsequent budget fights.

Today I am announcing that Navy Rear Admiral Margaret "Peg" Klein will serve as my Senior Advisor for Military Professionalism, reporting directly to me on issues related to military ethics, character, and leadership.

I appreciate Rear Admiral Klein's willingness to take on this new assignment. She brings to the position a wealth of operational and leadership experience, including command responsibilities at various levels throughout the Navy community. Having served as the 82nd Commandant of Midshipmen at the U.S. Naval Academy, she knows that ethics and character are absolute values that must be constantly reinforced.

Rear Admiral Klein will coordinate the actions of the Joint Staff, the Combatant Commands, and each of the military services - working directly with the Service Secretaries and the Service Chiefs - on DoD's focus on ethics, character, and competence in all activities at every level of command with an uncompromising culture of accountability. This will continue to be a top priority for DoD's senior leadership.

Make people do their f'n' jobs and fire the ones that don't, instead of engineering around the problem and institutionalizing the idea that enforcing standards doesn't belong to the chain of command.