Reason magazine has been following The Washington Post’s investigation of W. Richard West Jr., who just retired as director of the Smithsonian’s National Museum of the American Indian.

Records have shown that West has put a serious dent in the museum’s travel budget by spending $250,000 in the past four years on first-class tickets and five-star hotels in New Zealand, England, Sweden, Italy, Greece, and France — you know, places where there are just a ton of Native Americans.

Then just before West retired last month, he commissioned a portrait of himself that cost nearly $50,000 of the museum’s funds. That painter, by the way, was Polish.

And yes, it’s taxpayer money bankrolling all of this. Which wouldn’t necessarily be such a bad thing if he were halfway competent at doing his job.

So it’s all very curious that West is still on the executive search committee to find a replacement for Smithsonian head Lawrence Small, who was ousted last year for inappropriate spending. Who better to find a good ol’ boy than a good ol’ boy?