They will gather good company around them

Powerline, Time Magazine's Blog of the Year, yesterday, on the nomination of the niece of General Richard Myers and wife of Homeland Security Secretary Mike Chertoff's Chief of Staff to head the Immigration and Naturalization Service:

Ms. Myers is no doubt intelligent and charming, but this is an important position. And Myers' own testimony before a Congressional committee to the effect that she intends to "work with those who are knowledgeable in this area, who know more than I do," is disqualifying.

Powerline, Time Magazine's Blog of the Year, a couple of weeks ago, on the performance of horse show expert Michael Brown as Director of the Federal Emergency Management Agency:

Brown is, apparently, a political appointee with few qualifications for the job beyond general competence and management skill. This is hardly unusual in Washington; the conventional assumption is that staff who report to the head of an agency furnish the necessary expertise. As seems to have happened ...

If we assume for the sake of argument that their more recently stated position is their current position, then how far up the government hierarchy does the principle that it's not enough to say you'll have experts around you extend?

[Previous Powerline self-contradiction here]