Myers Watch

When a young lawyer named Julie Myers was nominated in 2005 to head the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency (ICE), questions were raised about her thin resume, which didn't contain any relevant immigration or bureaucracy management experience.

She did happen, however, to be the niece of retired Joint Chiefs Chair Richard B. Myers, and the wife of Michael Chertoff's chief of staff. Seriously.

Democrats held up her nomination.

But Myers, 36--vastly underqualified to manager a giant new agency with 20,000 employees--was given a recess appointment by the Bush administration.

Sen. Collins supported Myers.

Flash forward to this week: With Myers once again up for confirmation (as her recess appointment nears its expiration) Collins is having second thoughts:

A key Senate Republican has launched an investigation into the circumstances surrounding a controversial Halloween party at the Homeland Security Department, in which an agency director approved of a racially insensitive costume.

Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs ranking member Susan Collins, R-Maine, said Wednesday she asked her staff to question Immigration and Customs Enforcement Director Julie Myers over the incident.

Myers, whose confirmation is pending in the Senate, had judged an employee's costume of dreadlocks, dark makeup and prison stripes as the most original at an ICE party last week and even posed for photographs with the worker.

Collins said she is now withholding judgment whether to support Myers' nomination.

Myers also allegedly had the photographs destroyed.

In any event, with the Myers nomination--and as so often seems to be the case--Sen. Collins seems to be less troubled by questions of substance than with appearances.

Of course, in this case, appearances matter: It's beyond unprofessional for the head of a major government agency to tolerate casual racism, let alone to endorse it.

But anyone who was paying attention knew Myers wasn't right for the ICE job two years ago.