Burocratas Picaretas e o Tio Sam

Na selva todos sonham com uma sinecura para praticar o esporte nacional, a picaretagem bem remunerada. Nossos burocratas vão ao trabalho apenas para botar o papo em dia, discutindo futebol, tomar cafezinho degrátis e soltar um barrão usando o papel higiênico público. Seus paletós deixados nas cadeiras trabalham bem mais do que eles. Nos EUA também tem muito burocrata picareta, mas com uma pequena diferença, a picaretagem é punida: In September, Beale, who served as a “senior policy adviser” in the agency’s Office of Air and Radiation, pled guilty to defrauding the U.S. government out of nearly $900,000 since 2000. Beale perpetrated his fraud largely by failing to show up at the EPA for months at a time, including one 18-month stretch starting in June 2011 when he did “absolutely no work,” as Kern, Beale’s lawyer, acknowledged in his court filing.To explain his long absences, Beale told agency officials -- including McCarthy -- that he was engaged in intelligence work for the CIA, either at agency headquarters or in Pakistan. At one point he claimed to be urgently needed in Pakistan because the Taliban was torturing his CIA replacement, according to Sullivan. “Due to recent events that you have probably read about, I am in Pakistan,” he wrote McCarthy in a Dec. 18, 2010 email. “Got the call Thurs and left Fri. Hope to be back for Christmas ….Ho, ho, ho.” [Dica Badger]