Criticizing the government when it is implementing a program poorly and wasting OUR money, is an important part of democracy. Blank is performing a valuable public service: telling the people that our money is being wasted, and giving the government a suggestion on how they can improve their efforts.
Steve Blank has done his part. If the government ignores this (as you suggest they almost certainly will), they are failing to do their part. Steve Blank doesn't owe the government his leadership.
Why is he posting this? My guess, he genuinely cares to see entrepreneurship thrive in America and can't bare to see halfhearted attempts with hidden agendas.
My reaction was the opposite when I read his post. I thought it is pretty ballsy for someone like him to to go against the grain like this as he is likely speaking out against peers and colleagues. Status quo for Blank as he has written posts critical of VCs when deserved.
What I speculate is that he was trying to draw attention to the issue, for people who care about entrepreneurship, without actively going and trying to change it. He makes a very important point "there is no strategy" and in fact represents why many start-ups fail today. In a way I think he is saying "This start-up organization itself doesn't follow the guidelines that it's trying to promote". It's essentially like another model for a business school MBA, which arguably isn't always the absolute path to new company creation.
The only thing I think a government can do in this situation is to continue to provide a system for failure tolerance. This is America's greatest strength.
I can understand the frustration of a disempowering mandate but it's guaranteed that nothing will change if people like Blank do not inject their influence.
I feel he should have either accepted the role and made what difference he could or not done so and kept quiet. Rejecting the CEO role and badmouthing the project from his own soapbox seems churlish.