Interior Secretary Ken Salazar, National Park Service Director Jonathan Jarvis, and other NPS bigwigs must have been squirming as they listened to the eulogy. Robert Danno was saluting Margaret Anderson’s “uncommon professionalism,” days after the 34-year-old Mt. Rainier ranger had been gunned down by a deranged park visitor on New Year’s Day.

Danno had recruited Anderson when he was chief ranger at Utah’s Bryce Canyon National Park. Anderson later followed her mentor to C&O Canal National Historic Park when Danno snagged the top ranger job there in 2004. But now, thanks to the all-too-common unprofessionalism exhibited by many Washington bureaucrats, Danno has become a persona non grata in the agency he had honorably served for three decades.