Attentive readers will remember Julie Myers, acting director of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). Like many currently in the upper levels of the federal government, Myers followed the George W. Bush Path to Success: getting a job she’s unqualified for (in this case, the fed’s second largest law enforcement agency), apparently through cronyism and nepotism. But what set her apart from other W-style achievers is her sense of fun. At this year’s official ICE Halloween party, Myers yukked it up with, and gave an award for Most Original Costume to, a white ICE employee, who showed up in blackface and dressed like a prisoner.

Her defense at the time was that the guy’s face wasn’t necessarily black, just very dark (he could have been a dark-skinned Latino for all she knew).

Normally, all this would have been enough to send her slinking off “to”– as they say in D.C.– “spend more time with [her] family”, and make a smallish mint in the private sector as a lobbyist, trading off her government connections. But we do not live in normal times. Bush stood firmly behind his blackface-loving appointee, and yesterday, the strangely pliable Senate finally confirmed Myers, allowing her to drop that “acting” from her directorship.

While all this may depress those interested in good government, I say look on the bright side. The confirmation vote should guarantee one hell of a Christmas party at ICE this year. (I wonder how many ICE’ers are going to show up dressed as Zwarte Piet.)

Tags: blackface, Christmas party, cronyism, George W. Bush Path to Success, halloween, ICE, Immigration and Customs Enforcement, Julie Myers, nepotism, Zwarte Piet