If by "political operatives" you mean the people that the public have elected to run the government, then in some cases, yes. The extent depends on the government, which party is in power, and the individual minister. But I think most people will tell you that the bigger problem is the bureaucracy impeding the implementation of policies on which the government was elected, and not the elected government "meddling" with the way the bureaucracy wants to run things. That's not to say that the bureaucracy isn't often unfairly maligned.
I'd also add that the complete lack of any power and influence held by boards of directors of most major public companies is a major contributor to the corporate governance crisis we see today. If they got more involved in "piddling" operational issues and didn't just leave an unaccountable CEO to his or her own devices, we'd have a lot fewer instances of fiddling with the books and obscene compensation packages.