The actual work of government depends crucially on career civil servants. There’s no public task more vital than recruiting, retaining, and managing a corps of smart, honest, dedicated people who believe in the jobs they’re doing and have the respect of those around them.

And there’s no one less likely to do that task well than Scott Walker. Don Kettl explains why. And Ed Kilgore points out how Walker’s union-busting strategy is a big winner with the increasingly Koch-eyed GOP activist-and-donor class.

Like much contemporary Republican ideology, there’s nothing about bashing public employees that fits any sane definition of the word “conservative.”