Government efficiency strikes again

I am very much put out at the Department of State.

I realise that they have a lot on their hands, and that they didn't ask for the recent revisions to the passport law - Congress did - and that they are utterly swamped right now, but this takes the giddy biscuit, as Bertie would say.

We dragged ourselves out of the house with a two-day-old baby to get her passport photo taken and then spent about two hours at the passport agency ironing out the wrinkles on her application. At that time, we were promised the passport within six to eight weeks. We had exactly nine weeks to spare, so we chose not to waste the extra money on the expedited fee.

Twice now I've checked up on the status of the application. The first time it had been received. Now it has been forwarded to the processing agency in, of all places, NH, and the email reminded me that it takes up to ten weeks to process a passport now.

This makes me livid. We applied well before the crunch, and I know that they're busy and working overtime, but they need to process the applications in the right order, so that the people who were promised an eight-week turnaround will get it. If my (daughter's) passport is delayed because they're focusing all their efforts on the emergency passports of people who didn't plan ahead as well as I did (and they stand to rake in substantial fees from these ones, of course), well then!!!