The following is a perspective by postal commentator Gene Del Polito for Direct. The views expressed are solely the author's.

Being a participant in this past year's postal reform efforts has been akin to being on the receiving end of a Chinese water torture. The slow drip, drip, drip of missteps, empty promises, barely warmed left-over proposals, and an the lack of interest of those who should have been fully engaged has been a real trip. For instance, let's take the case of the Postal Service.

Talking about the "need" for postal legislative reform is nothing new. In fact, we've been talking about it ever since the late Postmaster General Marvin Runyon's National Press Club speech back in January 1994. Marvin thought there was a real need to change some of the paradigms that have long been a part of the American postal system, and said so. Unfortunately, the PMG's leading role in any subsequent postal reform debate was shunted aside by the "advice" he reportedly had been given by the then Speaker of the House, Newt Gingrich. Ostensibly, the Speaker recommended that the Postal Service not be the visible advocate for reform, but to let the Postal Service's customers and employees take on that role.

For a guy, like Gingrich, who was a former college professor of U.S. history, that had to be the worst advice anyone could give. History, after all, is replete with examples of calls for reform that were initiated by the agencies in question that have succeeded, and littered with examples in which the calls for reform have failed when they came from someone other than the leader of the affected agency. Ostensibly, Congress delegates administrative responsibility to various heads of agencies to benefit from the experience they gain as agency heads.

When the IRS wanted reform, the head of the agency called for it and was engaged throughout the enter process of discussion and debate. He didn't get the reform he sought by demuring to his "customers."

Throughout the past ten years of the current incarnation of a postal reform debate, the Postal Service has taken a pass instead of a leadership role. And when the agency itself fails to articulate definitively and unambigously what it wants and doesn't want from the legislative process, real reform just isn't going to occur. Even worse, when the agency head signals that what you want to serve up is not a dish to his liking, why would you expect him to remain as a guest at your table? With this story, there's more...much more. But we'll leave that for an article of another day.