Yes, I think most bureaucracies' survival function selects for the ability to be on the right side of the current political question. Those that would oppose that side for whatever reason are weeded out or remain at lower levels.

I don't know about the home of the brave angle. I can't quite understand how people can see such behavior in government institutions and not demand they be shut down. Seems like as often as not I just see people say "Those institutions were horrible! We need to replace the people in them with our people!" as though the structure doesn't select for the people inside of it, or in other words, it would go right back to misbehaving, possibly in a different way, because those sorts of institutional structures do not lead to the outcomes we want.

Maybe the citizens need to be brave enough to not have the government nanny as a backstop?