Very much so, it's a pretty unpleasant mishmash of both the head of state and Prime Minister roles from older systems.

Personally I blame CYA (cover your ass).

1. There's an issue, any issue.

2. Politician/Official/Appointee/Expert  is asked what should be done about the issue. Their possible responses are:

A: Nothing

B: Something

3. Outcomes of these two responses are very heavily weighted towards “something”.

4Aa: You propose doing nothing and nothing significant happens. People are content but you accrue virtually no credit.

4Ab: You propose doing nothing and something significant happens. People are outraged! You have been derelict. You should have done something. If you’re a politician it is highly likely your campaigns are toast. An official or appointee; your career is in peril. An Expert; your reputation is badly harmed endangering your status as an expert.

4Ba: you propose doing something and nothing significant happens. You claim credit. Your actions have prevented disaster! You appear competent and insightful. Politicians get votes, officials get career advancement, experts get prestige.

4Bb: you propose doing something and something significant happens. In the event that what you proposed doing ameliorates or helps the situation you are, if anything, more lauded than 4Ba. If what you proposed is either insufficient or useless then you were underfunded/not taken seriously enough/not implemented correctly. Either way your career and prospects either advance or are not significantly harmed.

Considering these options it seems like the weighting overwhelmingly favors doing something over doing nothing. If you do nothing or say nothing should be done you have little to no upsides with a risk of tremendous downsides. If you do something or say something should be done you have little to no downsides with a change of significant upsides.

Short of a wholesale changing in the attitudes and reactions of voters and the media I don’t see much odds of this changing.

Last I checked the libertarians were generally against the bank bailouts.

Good thoughts overall but I'd note that your final paragraph badly damages the tone and thrust of the rest of your piece.

Not to mention there's probably all of three women in the country who'd be willing to vote for the unabashed serial cheating bugger.

Good point.

Dude, welcome back (if you're back)!

Thanks for sharing Char. Tip o' the tophat to ye.

Had it in the bag even.

I'd have lost that dough. I thought Hilldawg had it in the bad. I hadn't realized what an utter imbecile Mark Penn was.

Seriously Mike, I think the TP are as crazy as catfish and as a general rule I'd vote for a painted monkey before I voted for a republican but I'd like to echo Jaybird and ask if you could please up your game a bit and put some thought and class into your commenting?

It's not just concern for the level of discourse here (though it is also that and I prise it). I don't mind it when conservatives do it, they're only hurting themselves. But when you do it you're hurting me.

Minneapolis Minnesota.

Isn't that, in essence, a consequentialist position Burt? I mean it's awful, sure, and a given voter should weigh their options and positions before making that step but I see allowing anonymous signing as a cure that is worse than the disease.

I'm not saying there's no downside, just that it's the lesser of the two downsides.

We're not talking about political donations Density, we're talking about petition/initiaitive signing which involves (to a small degree) a given signer literally laying their hands on the wheels of the country/state/municipality's governance. Any assumption of privacy flies out the window at that point.

Insisting on transparency is a call to accountability, a vaccine against corruption and a prod towards careful deliberation.

As for the theoretical consequences of someone donating the dynamic would presumably be the same with republicans so I don't see the significance.

It is certainly possible that the left understates the role of personal responsability in this but surely you would agree the right merely mirrors the failure in overstating the same? Certainly the left has, however reluctantly, addressed this failing in many ways. All over the first world (in some cases frog marched by the right, in others not) the left has taken steps to rationalize and limit safety nets. I mean we're not living in the seventies any more.

+1

Perhaps Will, you'd know better than I, but even so I'd say that its use is being perverted when it's acquired and used as a form of protest.

Ward I understand the value of privacy.. prize it in many ways. But in this context I just don't feel it is pertinent. We're talking about governance. There should be very little privacy or secrecy in governance.

On a personal note having pondered it over, Gorigas, I disagree with you on one more thing specific to homosexuality. Privacy was definitely not to the movements benefit nor to the benefit of our kind. Privacy was where we went to disappear, privacy was the closet, it was where we went to die. Gay right has only advanced in the country when people have been willing to set privacy aside, voluntarily (as the signers of the petition do). Our collective welfare has only advanced when we were out, sympathetically trying to be conciliatory to our families, friends and peers but unapologetic about the truth of what we are.

Im sympathetic to the sentiment Gorigas but I just feel the facts involved in the petition itself are being glossed over. The act of signing a petition to launch a refferenda is equivalent to standing up in the town hall and requesting the same. There is no expectation of privacy on any level, the self announcement, the self identification is volontary and built into the premise of the voter initiative process.

The very idea of the government saying "Five hundred anonymous people have indicated they wish to present an initiaitive saying such and such" makes the hair on the back of my neck stand up.

I hear the money was flown in with stealth helicopters too and Bush Minor was re-elected by purple crossdressing vote counting machines in upstate Ohio.

I fail to see the similarity at all beyond the fact that both are the same pieces of information.

-Doctors info: Presumably stolen or collected under false pretenses. Private information on the individual. Disclosed without permission. Used in the past for acts of violence including violence leading to loss of life.

-Petition signers info: Submitted volontarily under clear pretenses. Private information on the individual. Disclosed implicitly by the owner of the information when signing the petition (the act of signing the petition is implicit permission for this information to be made public record for verification purposes), so far no violence has occured at all as a consequence of the information being made public despite great hue and cry that it would be.

Perhaps you could elaborate or point our what Im' missing?

For me mMore information is better as a general rule Ward. Politics is a slow reacting field, I have no doubt people will start not giving a damn about the trivial crap as the generations roll on.

 I have one... I keep forgetting to use it I think..