So how's the Obama team doing filling all those federal jobs? Why not ask Ross Perot? (Ross Perot???)

It's entirely possible that this graphic from the Perot Systems website explains, or has something to do with, the company's keen interest in WaPo's Head Count database. Or maybe not.

by Ken

In March the Washington Post's Federal Page launched a nifty feature called Head Count, an interactive database in which the status of 514 positions filled by Senate-confirmable presidential appointment (not including ambassadors, judges, U.S. attorneys and marshals) can be tracked, with snazzy graphical readouts showing the proportions -- broken down by agency and category -- for which appointments are "announced," "nominated," "confirmed," or "open." (No kidding, you can search for just about anything, including positions and names.)

Naturally our pal Al Kamen has been keeping watch on the Head Count watch, and yesterday he reported that --

the Obama team, after that summer stall, tapped 24 new individuals in September for the 514 top jobs we're tracking -- not including ambassadors, judges, U.S. attorneys and marshals -- and added 25 more in October, bringing their total, as of Halloween, to 353 either announced, nominated or actually installed in their jobs. That's only about 69 percent of the total openings. Looked at another way, nine months into the administration, barely more than half of the senior jobs -- 52 percent -- have been filled by Obama appointees.

By comparison, George W. Bush's team had 300 confirmed for 503 such jobs at the end of October 2001, or 60 percent. And the Bush team had announced or formally nominated 105 more candidates, besting the Obama effort at this point by 52. But with so few Obama nominees pending in the Senate, the Bush total of 80 percent of the jobs filled at the end of his first year looks to be unattainable.

Given that the norm, of late, has been for federal appointees to start leaving their posts after about 18 months, the first round of openings likely will not be filled before officials start going to the private sector to cash in.

But perhaps more interesting, Al reported on who's keeping track of Head Count.

In the newspaper biz, you knew things were going well if the paper was selling copies. Market research more or less told you what features readers liked. But the electronic world gets rid of a lot of guesswork. We actually know how many people have visited Head Count since its launch in mid-March and where they've been coming from. So, for example, we know that, as of mid-October, Head Count was visited more than 1.2 million times.

Nearly half of those visitors were federal government employees -- with the Internal Revenue Service accounting for about a third of those. Other top visitors included the U.S. Army Information Systems Command, with about 14,000 visits, and the Environmental Protection Agency, with 13,000. The departments of Defense, Justice and Agriculture each logged more than 10,000 visits.

In the private sector, for reasons unknown, Perot Systems is far and away the leading visitor, with 3,100 visits. Locally, law firms Hogan & Hartson and Covington & Burling were among the leading head counters, along with PR giant Burson-Marsteller, but those three institutions combined for a total of only about 2,000 visits.

Oh man, just when you think you've got more than enough to be paranoid about, Ross friggin' Perot???

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