SALON Article: "A spirit of petty vengeance"...

Trump’s desire to purge all Obama appointees could do major damage
Will the government still work on Jan. 21? Trump's scorched-earth approach may have dire consequences

http://www.salon.com/2017/01/10/a-spirit-of-petty-vengeance-trumps-desire-to-purge-all-obama-appointees-could-do-major-damage/

Source: Salon

(Excerpt) According to a Monday report, the Trump team demanded the resignation of the two heads of the National Nuclear Security Administration as of Jan. 20, with no nominees waiting in the wings to replace them, and this would be just the latest in a list of examples of the new administration’s getting ahead of itself in its zeal to put its stamp on the government. Last week The New York Times reported that Trump has demanded that all ambassadors and envoys appointed by Obama to a foreign country turn in their resignations as of noon on Inauguration Day, leaving some critical foreign embassies without a representative to head them.

It is one thing for small nations without major geopolitical roles to lack an American ambassador for a while. (I suspect Barbados, for example, will manage just fine.) But it is quite another for every ally in a busy geopolitical realm – like, say, all of Europe, Asia and South America – to go without. Traditionally, some ambassadors stay on in their posts for months or even years to soothe the nerves of certain allies and provide a bridge from the old administration to the new one.

This policy is going to be replicated all across the executive branch, where there are somewhere from 3,000 to 4,000 positions that require a presidential appointment, with just more than 1,200 of them needing a Senate confirmation. These positions will take months or even years to fill. And while the agencies and departments will not cease functioning — the work that keeps them humming is done by career civil servants who know their mission better than their eventual bosses — critical government functions still will be harmed.