(photo: Random people of different genders and ethnic backgrounds take time to do board-of-directory things.)
Good news! My company has just invited you to have a seat on its Board of Directors. Congratulations!
Aside from the prestige that will now be showered upon you, you will of course be given some fabulous stock options as a form of compensation for your wisdom in steering our enterprise into a long and profitable future. Help us make the right decisions, and we’ll be farting through silk!
Now, I will be the first to admit that the stock has taken quite the beating over the past three or four years. There are a variety of complex reasons for this, of course, but it is our sincere hope that you refrain from digging too deeply into the myriad of actual factors that caused the temporary downfall. Instead, we have given you two brief reports; each asks you to blame the fall in price-per-share entirely on one of two departments. To make sure the process is fair, I have asked each of the two departments that might be on the chopping block to author the report of the other department you might wish to eliminate. Don’t worry; these reports won’t take very much of your valuable time to read. In fact, for your ease each department has condensed its “findings” into a few easy-to-remember catchphrases.
Oh dear, I’m already off agenda! Here I am going right into the blame game, before I’ve even gotten to the first and most important discussion point. (I’d lose my head if it weren’t attached – no wonder we called you in to help guide us!)
We recognize that assigning blame is less important than choosing the right new management team. This team is important, because we’ll need them to right our ship and steer us into Port Profitable, in the center of Big Money Bay, along the Coast of… hmmm… wait, I had something for this. Begins with “C.” Coast of Cash? Commodities? Calcium? Oh gosh, I can’t remember now. But trust me, it really hammered it home.
Anyway, our search committee has identified a few pretty fabulous candidates to take over as our Chief Executive Officer. We have prepared detailed resumes and reports on all of them. You’ll note that we have taken the liberty of distilling each candidate’s qualifications down to only the most relevant factors needed to manage a large, multi-faceted, global-reaching company like ours. To that end you will see the reports focus primarily on the following:
1. Political Party Affiliation
2. Religious Affiliation, along with our experts’ determinations on just how important that affiliation is to each candidate.
3. Marital Status, with special attention given to the spouse’s ability to make cookies. We also speculate on the chances that each candidate has dipped his pen, if you will, in someone else’s ink, if you catch my drift. (The pen is his penis!) Also, there is a report on the degree to which each candidate’s family is exactly like yours in every way; we knew this would be an important factor in your decision. (By the way, in those cases where we thought it possible that a male candidate might have strayed from the marital bed, we have tried to provide photos of the alleged mistresses to better help you determine if that person would indeed be “doable.”)
4. Ethnic Background, including notes about his or her parent’s occupation.
5. A Beer, for you to imbibe with all of them in the next room immediately following this meeting. We thought it would be important for you to know which one you most enjoyed doing this with, prior to turning over the financial keys to our company.
We did not bother reporting on the height or weight of the candidate, since the thought that we might have put forward a short or fat executive is laughable.
By the way, I should probably note that all of the candidates have a few very, very minor common shortcomings. For example, some of them know literally nothing about our industry and have declared they have little interest in learning. Others have worked in our industry for decades so clearly do know about it, but for some reason are asking us to tell you that they haven’t and don’t. Also, at the risk of being all TMI, maybe I should let you know that they pretty much all have some potential moral issues surrounding both honesty issues and fiduciary responsibility. All of them have been caught in huge whoppers in their job interviews, trying to provide us with answers they thought we wanted to hear. Also, most of them have a history of accepting money and other “gifts” from vendors for their personal use, and then giving those vendors massive, overpriced and often-unnecessary contracts that have helped sink their previous employers’ financial position. (We debated even telling you any of these last items; what with the criteria listed above and knowing that they weren’t fatties or under 6 foot it hardly seemed relevant.)
So please, we ask that you take your time and talk to each candidate in small 30-second increments about any of the criteria we laid out above before giving us your hiring recommendation. After all, your future earnings depend on you making the right choice.
_______________________________________
One of the things I miss about the 90s, aside from Britpop and the unrealistic expectation my 401k would increase exponentially forever, is the old right-wing saw that “the government needs to be run more like a business.”
That slogan, long since discarded by Republicans for culture war sound bites, always rang true to me. Mind you, the talk-radio set found a way to frame this truism in a silly way. But that is to be expected; framing issues in silly ways is the very purpose of talk radio. So by the time the 20th century’s wheel was winding down, “government should be run like a business” had already come to mean the ridiculous notion that agencies that were not “profitable” should be scrapped or privatized. (Because really, what is the purpose of maintaining a standing army or educating children if not to make a quick buck and retire early?) But talk radio aphorisms aside, I really think there is something to running the government more like we would our own business.
As most of you know, I am toying with the idea that we are having the wrong arguments in our public policy and election debates. Key among these wrong arguments is the criteria we use to determine our potential leaders. Who’s Right or Left is a fun question to ask, and it’s certainly the one we feel most comfortable asking. But is it the right question?
Take our own sitting President as an example. Since he was sworn into office, President Obama has been under constant fire from the right wing. And by and large, the slings and arrows have been tremendously silly. In fact, I can’t even decide which “outrage” that we as a country talked about over the past year is my favorite. Is it that he is a terrorist plant from our sworn and bitter enemy, Kenya? Or that his telling kids to “stay in school and be good citizens” was the first step in creating a neo-Sturmabteilung Brown Shirt army? Or was it the concentration camps he was preparing just outside of town? Or his plans to eliminate all news and talk radio that was not NPR? Or his implementing Sharia Law to forcibly convert a Christian nation to Islam?
All of these bits of noise have three things in common. The first is that they are, as previously mentioned, silly. The second is that they are created and circulated for no other reason than to gain political power and monetary donations by creating unnecessary anxiety. But the worst thing they have in common is that they distract us from the things that we should really be concerned about.
Last week the Los Angeles Times reported on a new federal government expenditure: a $433 million contract for a smallpox treatment manufactured by Siga Technologies. What makes this contract special is that the treatment is unneeded, expensive, unproven, and did not go through the bid process. Oh, and that the contract itself is a big, waving red flag of White House corruption.
For those that do not know, smallpox is a scary but eradicated disease that it treatable within four days of infection. This treatment, which costs about $3 per person, is already stockpiled in ample supply for the United State’s entire population should an outbreak occur. Siga claims its new treatment works after the four-day window. However, because smallpox no longer exists anywhere that we are aware of, there is no way for Siga to test it in a lab to see if it actually works. The cost Siga charged the federal government was significantly higher than $3 a dose, coming in at a whopping $255 per dose. The number of doses ordered by the government for it’s first order? A generous 1.7 million. The profit margin for Siga? A jaw dropping 180%.
When I say purchased by the government, of course, I mean railroaded through due to pressure from the White House. The Department of Health and Human Services resisted the purchase, calling it expensive, unproven and unnecessary. However, Siga’s primary shareholder, Ronald O. Perleman, is a longtime DNC donor and a financial backer of the Obama for President campaign. Over the course of the past year the White House has not only forced through approval of the purchase, but also successfully acted to eliminate the opportunity for other firms to bid.
Were we having the right arguments, this would be a big story. It would be bigger than Pick Parry’s #3 gaffe, and bigger than CBS’s slight to Michelle Bachmann’s ego. It would be a bigger story than Obama’s birth certificate by a factor of about one million. But we won’t see Obama’s opponents make much of this, except in the most cursory fashion. And the reason is simple: a spotlight on this type of corruption isn’t a spotlight either party wishes to have become commonplace.
Erik noted in August that Rick Perry has more than a few of these sweetheart deals for donors in his own closet. I noticed then that when we discuss those types of arrangements here, we do so by bandying about the word “corporatist,” which does the disservice of making this type of behavior sound like a type of legitimate governing philosophy. But it isn’t; it’s corruption. The question we should ask when reading Erik’s post isn’t “Is Rick Perry really a corporatist?” It’s, “Why on Earth does Texas still allow him to be governor?”
But of course we don’t ask that question. Some liberals might, but only because Perry is a conservative. Vice versa conservatives with Obama.
Declarations from our leaders that they will protect us from the government, or that they will protect us from corporations, have become all-important to us. Their ability to utter one or the other (without having to actually do anything) is the argument we tell ourselves is important. The degree to which they are competent or corrupt isn’t. Which brings me back to the beginning of this post.
Were we to be told by a division head under our direction that they had made a management hire based on the criteria we use to appoint the executive managers of our government we would fire their ass, have security escort them out, and call HR to make sure they were never considered for another position – and rightfully so.
So, to quote every Republican running for office circa 1992, why can’t we run the government more like we would our own business? Aren’t we better set for success with competent and non-corrupt leaders, regardless of political label?
“showered up you…”
Is this gonna be like a bidet?Report
Thanks for the catch. I have fixed it, though the misspelling kind of has its own charm.Report
I don’t mention it because I want to be critical but because I like the imagery of the accidental.Report
I’m not sure which is going to be better, the original post or the hilarity that will ensue in the comments.Report
Maybe if it was posted tomorrow AM.
I think it might lag on account o’ the posting time, though.Report
Jason, perhaps there’ll be some takers, but the straw man count in the OP is way too high to engage the legitimate arguments in the post.
President Obama has been under constant fire from the right wing. And by and large, the slings and arrows have been tremendously silly. In fact, I can’t even decide which “outrage” that we as a country talked about over the past year is my favorite. Is it that he is a terrorist plant from our sworn and bitter enemy, Kenya? Or that his telling kids to “stay in school and be good citizens” was the first step in creating a neo-Sturmabteilung Brown Shirt army? Or was it the concentration camps he was preparing just outside of town? Or his plans to eliminate all news and talk radio that was not NPR? Or his implementing Sharia Law to forcibly convert a Christian nation to Islam?
All this is rhetorically unnecessary and substantively irrelevant: Fact is, only a minority of the stockholders approve of the job the current CEO is doing. We shall strongly consider letting his contract expire and hiring a replacement.
And further, it is premature: the real challenge is in arguing why the current CEO should be retained, since a candidate to replace him has not yet been decided upon.Report
Good grief, Tom. You’re going to take post on corruption in Obama’s White House, that starts by commenting on how screwed up the process that we went through to pick him in the first place, and count it as a pro-Obama love letter? How is that not going out of your way looking for what you want to find?Report
I entered into evidence the paragraph in question as my objection, Tod. I didn’t write a generic and mindless bash on you. But I may be underappreciative of the tightwire you feel obliged to walk, this I admit. Still, for you to even acknowledge that “Obama is a Muslim” shit cheapens your own argument. Lie down with dogs, wake up with fleas. I see too many thoughtful people lie down with these dogs.
If the 2012 campaign goes as I hope, it’ll focus on the CEO’s incompetence at running his own administration, as well as its corruption, but not of the petty type that feathers one’s own nest. We leave petty theft to Congress; BHO will never want. Dick Cheney had made his nut as well—that he would sell out our country for Halliburton money was absurd.
If BHO is corrupt, it’s for ideological purposes, and that affects the health of the nation. It’s a matter of great importance. I have gone back & reread yr post, and that is indeed yr larger point, so for reacting to the graf that jumped out at me, I do apologize: I didn’t take your tightwire and predicament into proper sympathy.
[Hell, empathy, Tod. I just got appointed to the front page, and have promised mgmt that I would try to walk the same tightwire.]
But I don’t expect anyone to get a clean bill of health on the corruption thing. Perhaps Jimmy Carter, but if that was a virtue, it was also his greatest failing: the man did not know how to make a deal, even with his own party. We don’t have to elect Machiavelli’s Prince, but neither do we need a president who cannot abide—compromise with—reality.
As for the smallpox thing you [most equitably] cite here, I’m willing to give BHO the benefit of the doubt until I hear more. I do trust these guys we eventually nominate or elect to be president. I don’t think they’re cynical—when they pitch gov’t money toward friends, I think they honestly believe [hope] it’ll achieve its purpose and be money well-spent.
The only real “character” question is how honest they’re capable of being with themselves.Report
Shorter Tom:
Why even consider how the Republicans might make stronger arguments, when complaining about bringing up strawmen is so much more fun?
Never mind that the original post was about how to get past the strawmen, and on to something that, in a saner world, might count for a lot more.Report
Also, Tom, consider that there is a serious use vs. mention problem in your objection. Tod isn’t using these strawman arguments. He’s merely mentioning them — the better to put them behind us, forever we hope.Report
Oh, Jason, “mentions” can often be prejudicial, and can be rhetorical dirty pool. Neither are the listed things like “concentration camps” accurately assigned to “Republicans” without a qualifier like “a wack handful of.” Further, I replied substantively to the rest of the OP in the very comment you append yours to.Report
So, according to this view, statements of fact are evidence that reality actually does have a liberal bias.
Cmon Tom. A little while ago, polls showed that something like 65% of self-identified conservatives were uncertain that Obama is a US citizen.Report
I was speaking of the “concentration camps” specifically, Mr. Stillwater. If you want to defend the bill of goods, you must defend the whole bill of goods.
As for polls, I’m cautious. I do believe folks give answers like the one you cite to give the finger to BHO and probably the pollster too.
Do you believe Obama blows dogs? Yes, mark me down for “strongly agree.”Report
But polls show democrasts won’t vote for “mormons”.Report
That’s different.Report
What is your contention, Tom. That I made this up? That it was not a talking point on FOX and the talk radio set for a while?
If your point is that “concentration camps” was never an actual concern of the GOP, I agree – but neither was the birth certificate, except in as much as it could generate votes and donations. But if that was your point than you missed mine. The things you object to me using are what the right has actually been talking about, vocally, for the past couple of years. My issue is that they talk about that stuff and don’t worry so much about the actual corruption they should be.
The worst mistake the Tea Party ever made, in my opinion, was to take what looked to be a serious and positive movement about issues of governance and allow itself to get baited into championing anti-Staln rhetoric and the birtherism movement.Report
Tod, I think your conception about what “the right” thinks is filtered by those who focus on what might make it look bad. This is a phenomenon I observe often in those who don’t dip into the rightosphere [say Instapundit] regularly, and get their info about it from those who are hostile to it.
In the larger sense, to troll the dregs of either side is unproductive, but I’m sure you’ve noticed we spend an inordinate amount of time on them. For instance, I assure you the left thinks and talks a lot more about Michele Bachmann than “the right” does.Report
The entire “birther” issue is a brilliant false-flag operation by the DNC. By “creating” a false controversy (to distract from the myriad REAL controversies available) and allowing it to fester, they’ve established a perfect deflection mechanism. Otherwise, why would a known high muckity muck in the DNC be the water bearer for the “controversy” in the first place? Why spend so much “hiding” the documents, they’ve already spent over $3M, it would be cheaper to pony up the $50 fee and make a copy. Unless of course the /true/ purpose is to continue the sleight of hand. Nothing to see here (corruption, cronyism, criminalism) move along, hey look squirrel!Report
Ward, even if Republicans were baited, they jumped with great enthusiasm and held on with all of their might long past the point where it was apparent that they were in the wrong.
(I think there is something to TVD’s interpretation, though. I suspect a lot of Republicans hadn’t thought about it, didn’t really care, but found it to be a way to express mistrust of the President.)Report
For instance, I assure you the left thinks and talks a lot more about Michele Bachmann than “the right” does.
The problem with this contention, Tom (although it may very well be accurate), is that when the nuts and bolts start flying around, the whole discussion sounds like a debate over the Scottishness of representative samples. I think that’s unfair to everybody involved.
At one point, Ms. Bachmann had a 28% rating among polled GOPers. Now, some of this might have been the polled people giving Mitt the finger, I’ll grant you, but that doesn’t explain *all* of it.
Now, maybe the Intellectual Right never considered her a viable candidate. You certainly didn’t, IIRC. All that’s fair enough.
I think a fair rejoinder is a list of Conservatives, and their public record of endorsement for one of the existing candidates. Do you have a list handy?
I’d gladly accept such as some evidence for who the GOP *actually* cares about.
My impression, at this point (as a non-Rightie reader, to be fair), is that nobody in the GOP is all that afired to write any endorsement of any of the current candidates. In fact, your “Make Mine Mitt” post is the only one I can recall in recent days throwing chips down (for which you ought to be commended, if I haven’t already).
This is asking you to do a lot more work than anybody on the left has to do, because the incumbent is getting the nod from the Democrats whether you like it or not.Report
Will, those weren’t Republican’s jumping with great enthusiasm but the citizenry. The only “Republican” to bring it up with sincerity was Trump, another stalking horse for the DNC (Trump has ALWAYS been and still is a Democrat).
Patrick, I said it before and I say it again, Cain’s my candidate.
If Ronald Reagan were to appear on the scene today the Republican establishment would reject him (as they did the first time). He wasn’t the establishment’s candidate, he was the people’s candidate.Report
Tom, with all due respect, spend a few days listening to Rush, Hannity, Levin and Boortz and I think you’ll find many of the items Tod mentioned brought up nearly daily, if not hourly. I know when I happen to tune in during my daily commutes I hear them and their ilk with disturbing regularity.Report
Perhaps minor-leaguer Boortz, Mr. Plinko, but not the others. I listen too, and “concentration camps” was not on the agenda. But to litigate your impressions [or mine] is pointless.
Further, talk radio is not the real world. But if you tune in today, you’re going to hear Solyandra and the scotching of the XL pipeline and exactly what Mr. Kelly says we should be talking about, and not concentration camp or birther nonsense.
Oh, and bigtime on Chris Matthews on Barack Obama’s disengagement with his own party members in Congress. Now there’s a topic for a post…Report
Tom, I’m not sure that I’m following you here. Why is it that you believe these topics to be “trolling the dregs” of today’s American right? While I don’t think of there being a uniform or homogenous group of symbols and belief for something as big as “the right,” I’m talking about things that have become staples on FOX News, and talk radio fixtures like Limbagh, Hannitty, O’Reilly, etc.
Aren’t all of these, or at the very least FOX News and Limbaugh, indicative of the mainstream? If the vast majority think of either FOX or Limbaugh as fringe dregs, they certainly do so quietly.Report
Tod, if you insist on litigating this:
Is it that he is a terrorist plant from our sworn and bitter enemy, Kenya?
Asinine. Citation[s] needed, without trolling the dregs.
Or that his telling kids to “stay in school and be good citizens” was the first step in creating a neo-Sturmabteilung Brown Shirt army?
I recall that one, but it was a little more complicated. Hyperbolic, but not asinine. No objection.
Or was it the concentration camps he was preparing just outside of town?
Asinine. Citation[s] needed.
Or his plans to eliminate all news and talk radio that was not NPR?
Unfairly stated. Limbaugh in his own words on Obama and the Fairness Doctrine. That there was support on the left for its return is indisputable. Was this a preemptive strike by Limbaugh? Likely. But no claim was made that Obama had actually made such plans. A push at best here.
Or his implementing Sharia Law to forcibly convert a Christian nation to Islam?
You’re kidding, right?
Report
Are you seriously telling me you don’t remember any of these being issues these past two years, Tom?
Report
I remember claims that Der Chimpler was going to institute a draft and then cancel the elections.
Sadly, this website was not around then… but, as far as I know, the only conservatives here who went Birther were Mr. Cheeks (who says a lot of things) and The Ghost That Haunts Us.
I doubt that the leftier folks should be asked to defend against the wackier things said about Dumbya.Report
Obama implementing sharia law, Tod? Where do you get your info?
I thought at least you’d just say you were exaggerating for effect. But y’know, often “they” are, too, but by the time it gets through the Media Matters filter, all context and tongue-in-cheek intention is lost.
I really wanted just to register an objection, not rake you over the coals on this. All I can say is that I listen to “them,” and the picture painted by their opponents is ridiculous.
I posted Limbaugh in his own words, and the reality of Public TalkEnemy #1 was quite reasonable. But defending him or talk radio as a whole is a mug’s game. All I can object to is taking statement X from talkshow host Y as representative of the whole, or confusing the toy department with the real world.Report
First of all, I love that the conservative defense against the consistent speech on right-wing radio is, “oh, you just don’t get the subtle sarcasm and jokes” ignoring of course that most of the time, Media Matters and other such horrible sites include a sound clip so you can hear the inflection so all can hear the comedy timings of Mark Steyn and Rush.
Second, Sharia Law was a big enough worry that Oklahoma passed a ballot measure against any judge using it in a ruling. I wonder where they got the idea this might happen?
http://ballotpedia.us/wiki/index.php/Oklahoma_%22Sharia_Law_Amendment%22,_State_Question_755_(2010
))
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Yes, if you rewrite my premise, Jesse, you win. What you write about is a long way from “Or [Obama] implementing Sharia Law to forcibly convert a Christian nation to Islam?
It’s clear you’re only interested in scoring points, not actually discussing any of these issues, so thx for your reply. I cannot counterargue caricatures.Report
Why did the mainly conservative population of Oklahoma become concerned that Sharia Law might be imposed upon them in the past two years then?
Or just google Obama Sharia law and find the pages of links to right-wing blogs about Obama appointees and Obama himself being in favor of sharia law.Report
Asked & answered infra Jesse. You’re trolling the dregs [google the blogs!] but it doesn’t amount to an argument. And no, I’m not going to defend every time a right-winger takes a piss.Report
What if you google “Obama Sharia Law FOX” instead?Report
I wasn’t aware that 70% of the state of Oklahoma = a right-wing taking a piss.Report
Tod, do they say “Or [Obama] implementing Sharia Law to forcibly convert a Christian nation to Islam?”
I’m not going to sit through the video to find out. Regardless, I wouldn’t hold “the left” responsible for something I saw on MSNBC.
I’ve had my say on this. I think you ruined a pretty good essay needlessly.Report
No, that was me just being flip.Report
Tod, why didn’t you just say so and spare us [me!] this mess? I didn’t enjoy it.
I think I’ve earned enough sweat equity in this discussion to say folks should consider that people on the right can be flip as well, and you shouldn’t deep throat everything they say.Report
Sorry, Tom. I agree with that. I carried the attitude from the first part of the post to the second part, and I see where that was not the best move.Report
Well, when it comes to SHARIA!!! IN THE UNITED STATES!!!, it should be pointed out that it’s something that some Muslims do want their religious leaders from their Mosques to use to settle some internal civil disputes.
You know, the way that some Christians have their Pastors use Biblical Theory to decide internal disputes.
I think it’d be better to bite the bullet and say, sure, there are Mosques that have done this in accordance with the Liberties we find in the First Amendment and there are Right Wingers who go batshit insane at the thought of such things.
The same way that Left Wingers go crazy at the thought of a pastor talking about “voting your conscience when it comes to the infants’ blood-spattered democrat vs. the godly republicans in the voting booth this Sunday”.
Liberty means that Muslims get to act like Muslims in their Mosques. Even if there are people who don’t like liberty.
Pretending that there are Muslims who do not want Sharia law to decide how to clear up grey areas is… what? Whitewashing the truth?Report
I agree with this.Report
We’re chill, Tod. The meta, the real joke, is how the usual suspects declined to defend BHO against the body of yr OP, but lined up at my ankles to literally defend yr “flipnesses” instead.
Rather a mirror image of your real point, if you follow me here.Report
That would be because, given the facts presented, O is wrong.
I know you love quotes so here are two from noted commie David Frum.
“….The thought leaders on talk radio and Fox do more than shape opinion. Backed by their own wing of the book-publishing industry and supported by think tanks that increasingly function as public-relations agencies, conservatives have built a whole alternative knowledge system, with its own facts, its own history, its own laws of economics. Outside this alternative reality, the United States is a country dominated by a strong Christian religiosity. Within it, Christians are a persecuted minority. Outside the system, President Obama—whatever his policy errors—is a figure of imposing intellect and dignity. Within the system, he’s a pitiful nothing, unable to speak without a teleprompter, an affirmative-action phony doomed to inevitable defeat. Outside the system, social scientists worry that the U.S. is hardening into one of the most rigid class societies in the Western world, in which the children of the poor have less chance of escape than in France, Germany, or even England. Inside the system, the U.S. remains (to borrow the words of Senator Marco Rubio) “the only place in the world where it doesn’t matter who your parents were or where you came from.”
“We don’t usually delude others until after we have first deluded ourselves. Some of the smartest and most sophisticated people I know—canny investors, erudite authors—sincerely and passionately believe that President Barack Obama has gone far beyond conventional American liberalism and is willfully and relentlessly driving the United States down the road to socialism. No counterevidence will dissuade them from this belief: not record-high corporate profits, not almost 500,000 job losses in the public sector, not the lowest tax rates since the Truman administration. It is not easy to fit this belief alongside the equally strongly held belief that the president is a pitiful, bumbling amateur, dazed and overwhelmed by a job too big for him—and yet that is done too.”Report
You’re going to have to do much better than quoting David Frum, Greg. Dial 2011, dude.Report
FWIW, citing David Frum critiques of the GOP is like citing Mickey Kaus or WRM as a Democrat.
Personally, I agree with a lot of Frum’s criticisms, but it’s become his industry. So “even David Frum says…” has lost its meaning.Report
If BHO is corrupt, it’s for ideological purposes
If that ideology is “remain in power.” Otherwise, your statement is so absurd that it suggests you haven’t been paying attention at all.Report
Mmmm, no, Chris. An ideological fixation on “green power” that wastes billions is critiqueworthy.Report
Tom, oh, you have been paying attention, but to bullshit I see.Report
I’m sure everybody’s impressed with that clever and pithy rejoinder, Chris.Report
I’m sure, but as it was true, impressing people isn’t really important.Report
From my experience working in publicly-traded companies, it does feel like governments run an awful lot more like big businesses than most of us are willing to admit.Report
There is much truth to that Plinko. Conversely, we could say that politics stays with us even when hiding in the corporate sphere.Report
I would say that big corporations operate far more like the government, in terms of buerocrocies and inefficiencies, than most of us are willing to admit.Report
After reading the thing in it’s entirety, I not only could use the bidet but a nice hot shower, too. Just to get rid of the icky.
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And I mean the “icky” in regards to cronyism and all its features.Report
Awesome caption, man.Report
Ha…I agree.Report
Thanks Will. What’s especially great about it is that I noticed I can use I on almost any stock photo of multiple people and it still works.Report
“Aren’t we better set for success with competent and non-corrupt leaders, regardless of political label?”
Absolutely not. I’d rather have corruption of this type in a president who agreed with me ideologically, rather than cleanliness from an opponent. $433 million in corrupt contracts is small ball compared to $1.6 trillion in non-corrupt-but-extremely-wrongheaded-IMHO tax cuts.
Moreover, I’d note the following: let’s say liberals or conservatives really did follow this course of action–imagine, for instance, that Democrats impeached Obama over this. Would the Republicans applaud their actions but not use them to score ideological points? Of course not (and the same is true in reverse, of course, if the GOP had impeached Bush). Whichever side did it would be hurting themselves, for everyone’s benefit. We don’t base our economy on that, so I’m not sure why it’s a workable proposition for our political system.Report
Wow, really?
Huh.
How come?Report
Picture a person who is pro-gay marriage.
Do you think that this person would prefer his opposition to be perfectly principled folks who are morally upstanding or would you think that this person would prefer them to be Ted Haggard types?Report
The former, of course. Which is why it seems odd to me that they would pick the guy with a history of corruption.Report
Really? Because I always started to giggle like a crazy person whenever I read about this or that pastor found in flagrante delicto during the fiercest parts of the gay marriage debate.
While it never quite took all the wind out of the sails of the opposition, it was a spectacular opportunity to discuss such things as rights to privacy (seriously, people argued that what Haggard did was not my business… which, ironically, I agree with but, ironically, it sure as heck felt like they didn’t agree with the words as they tumbled out of their mouths like teeth in a nightmare).
Am I alone in this? Have *I* been Evil Jaybird all this time?Report
It’s similar to a Prisoners’ Dilemma. Moving from Defect-Defect to Cooperate-Cooperate is a non-trivial problem.Report
Yeah, I get understanding the scope of the problem. I don’t understand the preferring corruption and incompetence so long as it’s someone on your team.Report
Really?
Let’s set off to the side the debate over long-term damage to the party brand. And let’s assume that this smallpox issue was a premeditated sweet-heart deal to a favored donor. How does it compare to the impact the guy from the other team had over the last two seasons? Which would you choose between the two?
In all honesty, I’d rather have had Nixon over Bush II – sometimes a bull in a china shop does more damage than a fox in the hen-house.Report
Trizz, Mr. Kelly is not calling for a vote here, but a discussion first, esp since the other guys you mention are 1) dead and 2) not on the ballot.
Since you clearly think little of either of them, you have given President Obama the faintest praise imaginable. Which might just be all he has earned…Report
I don’t think “team” is the right way to say this (and frankly, it’s a bit of libertarian rhetoric that’s always kind of irritated me, so maybe I’m just prickly on it). But look at it from my perspective–the difference between Gore and Bush, say, is the difference between tax cuts for the rich vs. helping close the deficit, to the tune of hundreds of billions. What’s a few hundred million here or there? (And this perspective is equally valid from the other side–I don’t blame Density Duck for not calling out Bush on corruption, just as I don’t feel the need to call out Obama).
To be perfectly clear: corruption and incompetence aren’t the only bad things that you can do as president. They’re not even close to the worst things. You can sincerely believe that something is a good policy, and pursue it for the best reasons, and still have it be a terrible idea, and if it’s bad enough it’s a lot worse than padding somebody’s pocketbook with a no-bid contract. So given a choice, I’ll take somebody who may pad pocketbooks but won’t invade Iraq (or insert your policy bugaboo here).
It’s also worth noting that I grew up in Chicago so I probably have a higher tolerance than most for “honest graft”.Report
OK, one more thought: it’s also worth noting that basically all president’s have something like this under their belts. Bush’s MMS, Clinton and Mark Rich, LBJ and his incredibly shady TV holdings; I’m too lazy to go look it up, but I’d bet there are similar incidents for all the presidents (and certainly all the modern ones). It’s the presidential equivalent of breaking a glass if you’re a bartender. In an ideal world, you would never drop a glass–but the bar budgets for breakage anyway, and nobody gets fired for breaking glasses unless the problem is really egregious.Report
It’s strange to hear someone speak in such dismissive terms of something that would likely land you in prison in my country.Report
Well, I’m not making a big distinction between things that are actually illegal and things that aren’t illegal but are extremely slimy (e.g. the Marc Rich thing). I don’t know which category this one falls into, not being a lawyer or having all the facts. But all presidents have at least a little bit of slime on them, whether or not the law was actually broken. It’s kind of an occupational hazard.Report
Obviously when you swim in the cesspool that is politics in Chicago, you can come out smelling like a rose. It must be the unique content of said cesspool there that somehow isn’t as “sticky” as it is everywhere else. I guess they set this series in Chicago because they were all out of other largish cities? Nothing whatsoever to do with its reputation I’m certain.Report
Tod, I don’t think he’s thinking about it as teams. He’s thinking about it in terms of the help/harm that a politican would do.
I’m not a liberal, and I can’t stand the Democrats, but I will likely never vote for a Republican because of the harm that they can and likely will do in power. Witness the first 6 years of the 2000’s, but more than that, I mean carrying a 1950s ethos into the 21st century.Report
I see where you’re coming from, Chris. But I think what I’m reaching for here isn’t throwing just Obama out and who cares what the GOP does in his place.
I think I’m arguing that the kinds of arguments we are all having, right left and center, are best as ancillary arguments. For starters, I don’t think that we really have “philosophically based” policy opinions like we think we do. Which is why someone can spend half the day ranting that keeping the federal government out of people’s personal lives one day and ranting that government should make laws to keep same sex individuals from being teachers the next. (Or, in the interest of balance, arguing that respect of all creeds is a fundamental cornerstone that must be protected while protesting evangelical gathering. Which does happen in my city.)Report
Well, if I had to choose between corruption perpetrated by someone on Team Mostly Liberal like Me or by Team Conservative, Particularly on Social Issues, then yes… obviously I’d prefer that the team I mostly support most of the time be the one making decisions (and thus in a position to perpetrate corruption of this kind), as they’re more likely to do other things I like.
But that’s assuming that corruption is inevitable, and a certain degree must be accepted and overlooked. I don’t accept that as a given. Even though I am almost certainly going to vote for Obama again (sorry, Tom), it doesn’t follow that I wouldn’t want political corruption that happened on his watch investigated and condemned.Report
Also, if we take some amount of corruption as a given, you should at least ask whether voting for the other team is going to decrease it on the margin. If not, then corruption as an issue pushes you in the same direction as ideological issues.
I don’t know whether this is the case. My gut tells me that everyone always thinks it’s the case. Which means roughly half of everyone is always and necessarily wrong about this.Report
I’m not sure if that’s the right uptake.
It’s entirely possible (I’d even say probable) that most voters believe the additional harm caused from not having their political preferences being put front and center are greater than any marginal difference in corruption, even if their preferred party is somewhat more corrupt that the other. That is, they’re willing to tolerate their side’s corruption-oppo corruption =x because their perceived political policy preferences are much greater than x.
Heck, it’s probable that both parties deeply discount the negative effects of their own party’s corruption because, consciously or not, they realize that their political allies benefit on balance from the corruption. That is, everyone believes the net harm of their oppositions corruption is greater regardless of other political policy preferences.Report
A question regarding this line of reasoning, which I think is: 1. honest; and 2. de facto the line of reasoning of most people in the US.
If bribery, whether technically legal or illegal, is not impeachable, or at least not worthy of an impeachment conviction (which requires the support of a significant portion of the President’s party under almost any conceivable set of circumstances), what practical constraints (as opposed to nominal or theoretical constraints) are there to a President’s power? If, as I suspect, the answer is along the lines of “none,” “minimal,” or more likely, “the threat of the President or his party losing an election,” and if, as seems to be the growing consensus around here, the major practical difference between Presidents of the two parties is on long-term legacy stuff like appointments and bureaucratic hiring, what incentive does a President have to provide good short-term governance and to avoid corruption at any given turn?
First follow-up question: what should this imply about the relative importance, at least in the primary campaign, of a candidate’s record of ethics and competence over ideological purity?
Second follow-up question: what does this imply about the practical utility of campaign finance and anti-bribery laws on the federal level?
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Second follow-up question: what does this imply about the practical utility of campaign finance and anti-bribery laws on the federal level?
That they are primarily about signaling, not about substance.Report
Shhhhhhh…..Report
I prefer the term “window dressing,” but your answer sounds more intelligent.Report
Though compared to the NCAA rules about compensating athletes, they’re the Ten Commandments.Report
Compared to the NCAA rules on compensating athletes, jaywalking laws are the Ten Commandments.Report
Monarchies enjoyed even greater corruption as I recall my history books.
All in all, my favorite CEO candidate is the outsider, Herman Cain. Re-reading the blogs about his accusations, the drift I got was essentially, “He has not demonstrated an ability to lie that we’ve come to expect (and apparently enjoy) from our professional politicians”.
Since everyone else calls that a minus, contrarian that I am, I call it a massive plus.
The new (relatively cleaner) guy gets my vote.Report
Ward, straight up Monarchies were mightily corrupt. On the other hand the track record of constitutional Monarchies is pretty decent. You get to seperate out an impartially selected Monarch as a symbolic head of state(but functionally near empty) and an object of national reverence and that leaves the functional head of state (typically a Prime Minister) free to be reviled as the scheming crawling politician they all inevitably are.
Now some states accomplish the same with an appointed or elected symbolic head of state but why leave such numnums to politicians? I’m biased of course but I think the British Commonwealth has got it pretty well set up.Report
Would you let him drive your wife home?Report
Good Lord, Jesse, what a straight line.Report
Would I let Cain drive my wife home? No hesitation. Of course my wife isn’t even white so the meme the DNC is trying to promulgate means she’d be off the menu anyway.Report
The people doing the hiring have vastly different expectations of what the presidency is for. Some have limited expectations, read the Constitution, the President has defined powers, expect a President to be capable of intervening or influencing in certain domains and not in others. Others doing the hiring have quite far reaching expectations, “the buck stops here” means a great deal to them. Also, the head of state is unlike other offices in that a great many people feel deeply emotionally invested in it, and given the history of the United States the gender, race, religion, etc., of a President has huge social/cultural meaning. In a sense part of Louis XIV’s bold “L’état, c’est moi” still applies today.
Some members of the public expect politicians – surely to libertarians’ horror – to solve all problems great and small. From Truman “losing” China to the communists to Clinton setting a bad example for the children, the presidency is just freighted with far more than most any office I can imagine (other than perhaps heading a religion). What you’ve identified as extraneous considerations to you represent a certain outlook on the presidency. I’m sympathetic to some of the points you make. But I can understand why a lot more feeds into the decision than selecting someone to lead a company that makes this or that widget. Heading a nation is sui generis.Report
Yeah..I’ve been learning over the past years how much many people want the pres to be personal inspiration/inspiring leader and avatar for their version of america. Many people want the pres to be a best friend.Report
This is one of the advantages of monarchy. We can invest our sense of nationhood in a non-political figure, freeing us up to treat our politicians with less romanticism.Report
I’ve definitely had this thought looking at it from afar, as well.Report
Separating the head of state office from the head of government office is a good idea, though one need not have a monarchy to do it (Germany for instance). The head of state mystique gives heads of government extra protection from scrutiny that is probably unhealthy. I think that’s where the “if the President does it, it can’t be illegal” argument comes from. I didn’t fully appreciate the meaning of the distinction until I saw the brutal way Prime Ministers (and former PMs) are treated in the UK. The US is still living in an age of deference by comparison.Report
Word James. *commonwealth fistbump*Report
“…une certaine idée de la France.”Report
Here is a telling quotation attributed to Huey Long:
Those of you who come in with me now will get big pieces of the pie. Those of you who wait until later will get smaller pieces of pie. Those of you who delay too long will get — Good Government.Report
Right on Tod.
One of the largest problems facing our country, politically at least, is our complete disregard for the principles upon which our government is structured. Failing to respect or even acknowledge them, especially in everyday public discourse, ends up leading us on wild goose chases going after not the most unimportant issues, but completely fictitious ones.
My ideal President would have a humble and conservative foreign policy coupled with managing the executive rather than being the third wheel in Congressional politics.
Take the Sunday morning talk shows today and how they address the issue of Obama’s “lack of leadership” on the super committee’s deficit negotiations. Whatever you think he may or may not have achieved, for better or worse, the fact of the matter is that the President has no business “leading” anything but the executive. That we expect a President to have an answer for everything and put forth legislation for every issue is one of the most dangerous concepts to infiltrate our national psyche.Report
I agree with Mr. Gach here about the constitutional role of Congress. Many people dial up data about the health of the economy and ship of state under Dem or Rep presidents. But this is of course facile: Congress counts. And according to ECG’s own analysis, the Gingrich Congress deserves far more credit than it gets for the good times under the Clinton presidency.
The president does, however, wield the veto pen, so his role in legislation and the direction of the ship of state is far from negligible. Further, in the current crisis, with a divided Congress, either BHO is the leader of the Dem Party or Harry Reid is, the latter being a rather absurd thought.
So—esp if the president is the type who insists “something must be done”—it falls on BHO at this time to exert some leadership, and to criticize him for not doing so is entirely proper. It is entirely in his power to help break the congressional logjam and inappropriate for him to do no more than complain about it.
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Agreed on the Gingrich point Tom.
It irks me to no end when people cite what one President did or another. Clinton cut taxes and Reagan raised them….well actually the Congresses they presided over did those things, not in a vacuum of course, but it’s completely fallacious to talk about Presidential legacies while widely ignoring the much busier and more complex Congressional events that did or did not make those legacies possible.Report
Ethan and Tom:
Given that neither of you were aware of this corner of the intertubes in 2009, I’d be curious to hear your thoughts on an idea I had to address this problem, which I put forward here:
https://ordinary-times.com/blog/2009/10/29/returning-the-house-and-the-president-to-the-people/Report
I’m intrigued. Checking it out now.Report
MarkT, I see a bi-annual election for Demagogue-in-chief, a Speaker Ron Paul or Jesse Ventura, or perhaps an “outsider” Herman Cain-type.
We take the presidency seriously because he commands the military, but I’m not sure we could resist making Congress an even bigger joke than it already is.
As for the Senate, Trent Lott called it “herding cats,” and I think its 6-year terms were designed to make it so, to encourage such feline independence. Senate leaders strike me as unremarkable as a group [Reid, McConnell], less leaders than followers and vote-counters.
I think your commenters in the OP pointed out some of the possible unintended consequences, and if you’re of the “we need to get something done” persuasion, I’d say letting legislators elect their own leaders and whips is the best way to give them someone to rally around, or at least someone to mediate the intraparty compromises necessary to even get to first base.
Thx for asking. I’m honored.Report
Curious as to whether you could elaborate a bit more on why you think we’d wind up getting more of a demagogue in chief than anything else. In the short-term, perhaps, but it seems to me that in the long run a demagogue in chief would have a remarkably difficult time getting anything passed; with short, two year, terms, a demagogue isn’t likely going to last more than a term if he doesn’t succeed in getting a good amount of stuff passed.
And I admit up front that this is something that would probably be unpalatable to the “do something now” types by placing an additional veto point into the process.
One thought I have to significantly modify and moderate the idea would just be to formally place the Speaker and the local House candidate on a ticket a la President/Vice President. After primary season, the candidates of each party would determine who they are putting forward as Speaker.
One reason Congress is viewed as such a joke, I’d submit, is that its actual workings are so low-profile – we only really hear about those workings is when there’s a close vote on a controversial bill on which the President has used his bully pulpit in one way or another. Outside of those occasions, the only times we see or hear much about Congress is when a member (almost always a firebrand rather than a backbencher) is grandstanding on some talking head show, trying to get their name in the papers. Committed ideologues (including committed centrists) love these types when they’re on the same side, but then wonder why the rest of the R’s or D’s in Congress aren’t just as awesome. When they’re on different sides, committed ideologues assume that these grandstanding firebrands are representative of the entire opposing party’s members.
So for the committed ideologue, there’s little way to avoid the conclusion that 90% of Congress is Teh Suck. And, as you and I have agreed elsewhere, everyone is a committed ideologue of some sort.
But even if we’re not all committed ideologues, it’s probably safe to say that those who aren’t just don’t care all that much about the details of policy or follow the sausagemaking process terribly closely. They may want Congress to DO SOMETHING, even if they have little idea what it is they want Congress to do. They know only that every time they see a member of Congress, they’re being a belligerent firebrand of some sort, so they figure that belligerent firebrands unwilling to do what is necessary to compromise and DO SOMETHING are the entirety of Congress.
The exception, of course, is when we read in the local paper that our local Congressman got some grant money for the district or fixed someone’s SS check, etc. These things probably even impact our lives more directly than 99% of the stuff that gets into the national conversation. So we tend to figure our Congressman’s a pretty good guy even as we think Congress as a whole is a joke.
I think it’d be nice if we could have someone, in some way directly accountable to the people, on whom to more properly focus for the success or failure of the legislative branch.Report
MarkT, I think the president IS that guy responsible to the people, the 4-yr term. Reagan & Clinton both got done what they could: Reagan led foreign policy in return for Tip O’Neill raising taxes, Clinton was dragged kicking and screaming through welfare reform, but in the end moderated it closer to Dem-left sensibilities. Both were effective presidents, partisan policy preferences aside.
I think we only have room for one “the buck stops here” guy. Further, I think the 2-yr terms in the House would make the Speakership inherently unstable: only party loyalty and discipline ensures the continuity of a Hastert or Pelosi past one term.
The short terms in the House were designed to accommodate shifts in popular sentiment, but I think investing the Speakership with more power is too much of an accommodation, and yes, I would expect the firebrands to achieve ignition and be the types who could ride popular sentiment to an election win.
Two years later, a different one. A [non-molesting] Herman Cain springs to mind: let’s roll the dice, things can’t get any worse. We always hate Congress as a whole*. But each new speaker would be a lame duck, each elected to hassle Congress, not work with it.
Hell, if anybody could do a good enough job to get re-elected, we need him more as president! The pickings have not been that great, I think we agree. 😉
One of yr commenters noted that with mid-term elections tending to swing against the president, we’d be liable to always have a mixed gov’t, making the president a bit of a lame duck himself at the 2-year mark.
So I can most easily imagine a less functional and less stable gov’t, not more. You prefer the former, I the latter, so I don’t know what’s in it for either of us.
_________________
*”Suppose you were a member of Congress. And suppose you were an idiot. But I repeat myself...”—Will RogersReport
“I think the president IS that guy responsible to the people, the 4-yr term.”
On this I completely agree. To me, that’s the lion’s share of the problem, though. He’s the legislator-in-chief, the head of the bureaucracy, etc., etc. But Constitutionally, he’s only supposed to be the head of the bureaucracy, the military (but I repeat myself!), and foreign relations.Report
MarkT, I was very interested in the other part of yr OP, executive branch regulatory power becoming a de facto legislature.
A feature I particularly despise about Obamacare, how much is left up to the discretion of the Sec of HHS.
Such stuff vitiated yr call for an accountable head of the legislature, and it’s Congress to blame for passing laws that are near open-ended. But I’m not sure the structure of the system is the problem. It seems even worse in the UK
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quango
At least we can change presidents. The UK’s “quasi-autonomous non-governmental organisations” scare the bejesus out of me.
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It seems to me Tom that Obama’s done what he can to keep the comittee on task. His promise to veto any attempts to wriggle out of the sequestration consequences of a logjam are far from weak tea.Report
+1.Report
Typically fantastic post, Tod.
I’m still trying to wrap my head around buying a treatment for a disease that, absent a catastrophic failure of international intelligence, is highly unlikely to strike human populations ever again. (True, one never knows if a smallpox-like virus might emerge, but then one never knows if a treatment what works for smallpox might work on something smallpox-like. And we really have no verifiable way of knowing if this treatment works for smallpox, from what you’ve written.)Report
Thanks, Russell.Report
A depressingly good post.Report
Tom- Couldn’t help but think of this quote from The Newt from Saturday given the thread.
“I think that we need to be very aggressive and very direct. The degree to which the left is prepared to impose intolerance and to drive out of existence traditional religion is a mortal threat to our civilization and deserves to be taken head on and described as what it is which the use of government to repress the American people against their own values. “Report
Yes, Greg, that argument’s been going for 100 years, and is of special interest to me. I could argue either side.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Decline_of_the_West#Religion.27s_roleReport
Oh more than 100. Check out this book– you might like it. For whatever reason, there haven’t been many books at all studying the antiphilosophes before Burke.Report
Thank you kindly, Rufus. I’m on it.
Since as you know I [and Himmelfarb] are loath to credit the Enlightenment for the American Experiment as much as does today’s prevailing wisdom, any pointer to a nexus between the Counter-Enlightenment and say the Second Great Awakening would be greatly appreciated.Report
@Tom -wow its like no criticism or stupid quote or action by R’s ever actually means anything. Huh. Dial 2011?Report
Defend BHO from the body of Mr. Kelly’s post here, Greg, and leave me and the “other side” out of it.
Esp not with quotes from quislings, Greg, as some argument from “authority.” Pat Caddell and Doug Schoen, ex-Dems, just opined that Obama shouldn’t either bother to run again. I did not and would not even attempt to make any hay of that. I’m afraid you still don’t get it, or me. I want us to up our game.
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I already said that, given the facts presented, it looks like O did something sleazy. Do i have to defend that? Do i need to research the topic for an essay.
Quisling?? Well that does give away the game. Calling him a traitor. Yes please let us improve our game. Yes i know Fox news employees said those hilarious things. Can’t make that stuff up.Report
You still don’t get it, Greg. You don’t make a “neutral” argument from authority with a quisling, be it Frum or Caddell or a Bruce Bartlett or Dick Morris. I’m speaking of formal argument and rhetorical credibility here, not the color of our flags.
You either learn the other fellow’s language if you want to convince him, or continue to speak just your own to you and yours. Your call.Report
Bartlett is a quisling? umm whatever. As much as you seem to want to not be tribal or avoid flags, that is all i’m seeing from you.Report
Then you miss my point for the nth time, Greg. The flaw is not in the painting.Report
… if we picked presidents the way people picked boards of directors, then Al Gore would be president. Or Jeb Bush.
… just sayin’Report