Bush administration officials have added new material to their warnings about “Potomac Fever,” a condition typically attributed to an inflated sense of self-importance that can come with working for the government, particularly among political appointees who in reality are actually rather low-level players.
An initial description of the causes, symptoms and potential remedies at http://www.whitehouse.gov/results/leadership/potomacfever.html, solicited feedback about additional symptoms, which included considering oneself too busy to attend meetings and sending an assistant instead, excessive concern about the size of one’s office space, making a “them versus “us” distinction between appointees and career employees, and “the desire to construct entire speeches out of acronyms.”
One contributor put it this way: “The affliction often attacks the young who have yet to discover who they are as individuals. They believe that Senators, Mayors, Governors, etc. rush to take their telephone calls because it is they who are calling. They fail to understand, it is the office they represent that gets their calls answered. These individuals go through a difficult adjustment period once they leave an administration and suddenly no one returns their call. Many crash and burn once they leave.”
