Look, Sheila must be back at work—that’s her car in her parking space!”

From the Boston Globe:

“The administration of Governor Deval Patrick, embarrassed by revelations that the state highway safety director has a driving record that includes seven accidents, four speeding violations and two failures to stop for a police officer, announced today that the director will be removed from that job.

“Sheila Burgess, the top safety officer since 2007, is on medical leave recovering from an Aug. 24 one-car accident in Milton in which she drove off the road and suffered a head injury. She told police she swerved to avoid an oncoming vehicle in her lane. Burgess will be assigned to a “different role” within the state Office of Public Safety and Security, according to a statement released today by Mary Elizabeth Heffernan, the public safety secretary.

“Given her driving record, it is clear that Ms. Burgess should not have been hired as the director of Highway Safety in 2007,” Heffernan said in the statement. “Burgess is a former fund-raising consultant to high-profile Democratic candidates for public office, including Congressman James McGovern, whose office said on Friday that McGovern asked the newly elected Patrick administration in 2007 to hire Burgess, but without suggesting a specific role for her. She is paid $87,000 annually. Burgess had no experience in public safety, transportation or government administration when hired, according to her resume.”

“Heffernan called Burgess “a solid and dependable employee” during the intervening years, but today, following a Globe story that revealed her driving record, said she no long has confidence in Burgess leading the state’s efforts to reduce accidents by promoting good driving practices…”

Observations:

• Nobody questions whether removing Burgess from her post is mandatory, correct?
• Yet driving to and from work is clearly “personal conduct,” indeed more so than sleeping with your hired biographer, which creeps into workplace, subordinate-superior conduct territory.
• Why is Burgess’s personal conduct undeniably and uncontroversially grounds for dismissal, yet “personal conduct” negatively reflecting on judgment, honesty, integrity, discretion and trust in David Petraeus’s case is being defended as irrelevant to his position as leader of the CIA?

I’ll answer that question: it is because since the 1960’s a significant, and deluded, segment of the public has adopted the position that misconduct involving consensual sex cannot have professional consequences, because there is some kind of unwritten Constitutional amendment or Supreme Court opinion that prohibits “chilling” the right to have sex with whomever one chooses. Yet engaging in adulterous, hidden sexual activities with a subordinate is exactly as disqualifying for a leader who has a duty to instill and maintain ethical values in a national security organization, regardless of position or military status, as a record of reckless and careless driving is for a state highway safety director. He, like she, can no longer be a role model, nor a credible advocate for the values the agency must require from its employees.

I do not understand this, however. Ms. Burgess had an obligation to raise her driving problems as a possible issue when she was being considered for the job. That shows a disturbing lack of candor and responsibility. She shouldn’t be “re-assigned.” She should be fired. It isn’t just  highway safety that she can’t be trusted to handle. She can’t be trusted to be the Crazy Driving Director either, if Massachusetts has such a position (and if you’ve ever driven in Boston, you know it might.) She can’t be trusted at all.

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Pointer: Daily Caller

Facts: Boston Globe

Graphic:  Life After Caregiving