Rich Lowry‘s latest contribution to National Review Online puts the federal General Services Administration under the microscope:

A few (but not enough) heads have already rolled at the agency that threw itself an infamous Las Vegas conference that could have been planned by former Tyco CEO Dennis Kozlowski before he went to jail. …

… Charged with supporting federal operations, the GSA turns out to be a cynical wastrel. Prior to the conference, word came down from on high that it should be “over the top” — in other words, in the spirit of an over-the-top era of stimulus, when spending more is always assumed to be better. The GSA spent $6,325 on commemorative coins to reward its employees, fittingly enough, for their work on Recovery Act projects. It’s a wonder that Keynesians aren’t defending the $820,000 conference as a jobs creator, a notion that wouldn’t be any more absurd than the case they make for “shovel-ready” projects and green energy.

Such is the conference’s notoriety that the headline on a recent Las Vegas Sun article was: “Nevada lawmakers don’t want GSA scandal to put Las Vegas in bad light.” The event was the biennial Western Regions Conference of the Public Buildings Service of the GSA, and if that doesn’t sound like a good time, you’ve never partied with the GSA. A great deal of thought was put into how to sidestep and exploit every rule in the interest of gouging the government.

According to an inspector-general report, the GSA undertook two “scouting trips,” five off-site planning meetings, and a “dry run” for the conference. The Osama bin Laden raid might not have been so elaborately planned. Most of this painstaking preparation took place at the four-star M Resort Spa Casino outside Vegas (“the floor-to-ceiling windows offer an incredible view from every room”), where the 300 GSA employees gathered for the conference itself. All told, travel and catering costs for planning alone ran $136,000.