Mr. Bush: Portrait of a Washington Bureaucrat
at the rhanch
Mr. Bush now says he doesn't believe "anyone could have prevented the
horror of Sept. 11"
Leaving aside for a moment whether that is true or not, it struck me
as an oddly bureaucratic thing for him to say. Isn't he the
president? Wasn't he in charge? What ever happened to "the buck
stops here"? Why didn't he say, "there was nothing I could have done
to prevent the horror"? Probably because it's too transparent a LIE -
there is plenty he could have done - taking the warnings he got more
seriously and not taking the longest vacation in presidential history
for starters. But by spinning "anyone" he conveniently makes the FBI
and CIA seem more responsible for stopping them than he was, while at
the same time exonerating them. That's exactly the way the Washington
bureaucracy works - nobody takes responsibility and nobody ever gets
the blame when things go wrong. Nobody ever takes responsibility and
nothing ever really gets done so that everyone can keep their jobs.
In the first place Mr. Bush, it wasn't "anyone's" job to stop the
horror. "Anyone" didn't take an oath to protect and defend this
country - you did Mr. Bush. It wasn't "anyone's" responsibility to
provide the leadership that was necessary to avert the horror. It was
your responsibility.
But for a bureaucrat like Bush to take responsibility means he would
also have to take meaningful action. For Mr. Bush to have taken
meaningful action when he got the warnings about a terrorist hijacking
meant that he might have had to disrupt the airlines and made
passengers angry and that might have cost him votes and campaign
contributions from the airlines, who he was already protecting from
demands that they beef up security. Why should he do that when he
could just blame Clinton if anything went wrong? After all, that's
always worked in the past, and it pretty much worked this time too.
Why should Mr. Bush have taken action to stop the hijackings when a
terrorist attack might even raise his popularity, increase his power
and make his job more secure? It's not that bush planned or wanted
9/11 to happen - I'm not saying that. It's that he was a typical
government bureaucrat more concerned about keeping his job than doing
his job, and he allowed it to happen.
The dirty little secret in this country is that nothing has changed at
all since 9/11, in spite of all the war rhetoric and all the money and
new powers the government has recently granted itself. Because all
that money and all those powers only make their positions in the
bureaucracy more secure - it certainly doesn't make them do their jobs
any better or make us any safer. Quite the contrary. If anything,
inefficient bureaucracies become even less effective the more money
and power it's granted because they only become that much more
entrenched and complacent. It's like trying to coax a lazy man off
his butt by giving him a new recliner and adding more cable channels.
If Bush had really taken more responsibility since 9/11, instead of
milking the horror for political points, then he would have ordered
the sort of thorough examination about what went wrong that we are
only now beginning to discover (and he is still resisting). All this
should have happened eight months ago - there should have been people
fired a long time ago rather than congratulated. But
characteristically, the very first thing Bush did was to thank and
congratulate the CIA and FBI for their efforts. That's what
bureaucrats do, it's second nature to them - they cover for each other
and hide each other's incompetence. That's what Bush did for the FBI
and CIA, that's what they're doing for him, that's what the entire
"homeland securirty" bureaucracy is continuing to do today, and why we
are much more likely to suffer another attack.
Because in spite of all Mr. Bush's efforts to spin himself as a
Washington outsider and enemy of Washington bureaucracy, he is
actually the epitome of the Washington insider and government
bureaucrat - the son of a President and grandson of a Senator.
The REAL problem is a lazy and unaccountable government bureaucracy of
which Mr. Bush is the prime example and principal defender. Like all
bureaucrats, Bush is still more concerned about saving his own job and
covering his own ass than doing the job he swore to do. And frankly,
until we get a real leader and a real president with the guts to take
responsibility and fire enough bureaucrats to make the rest of them do
their jobs, then we are only re-arranging the deck chairs on the
Titanic, and this country will continue to be undefended against
terrorist attacks.
cheers,
Trebor
Trebor
Woodard R. Springstube
news:3d026c94...@news.earthlink.net:
>
>
> Mr. Bush now says he doesn't believe "anyone could have
> prevented the horror of Sept. 11"
<SNIP>
>
> The REAL problem is a lazy and unaccountable government
> bureaucracy of which Mr. Bush is the prime example and
> principal defender. Like all bureaucrats, Bush is still
> more concerned about saving his own job and covering his
> own ass than doing the job he swore to do. And frankly,
> until we get a real leader and a real president with the
> guts to take responsibility and fire enough bureaucrats to
> make the rest of them do their jobs, then we are only
> re-arranging the deck chairs on the Titanic, and this
> country will continue to be undefended against terrorist
> attacks.
>
>
Trebor,
Long time no see. I guess that my plonk file must have
expired. Unfortunately, the lazy, unaccountable bureaucracy
long predates Mr. Bush. Hell, they were lazy and
unaccountable back in the 40's and 50's, when the government
was experimenting on citizens and even before with the
Tuskeegee Experiment on the African American men with
syphillis.
The government bureaucracy is so damned large that nobody can
keep track of what they are doing or not doing. That is a
problem that won't be solved easily. Congress can't do it,
since their information is what the heads of the bureaus
choose to give them, unless somebody is willing to ruin their
own life by blowing the whistle. By the way, don't think that
the "Whistle Blower" Laws help very much. Once somebody has
gotten a reputation for raising a stink, very few employers,
either in or out of government will touch then. Sad!
Woodard
> cheers,
> Trebor
>
>
>
King Pineapple
message news:Xns9227BD9E6D5D...@204.238.120.162...
> Trebor,
>
> Long time no see. I guess that my plonk file must have
> expired.
No, Trebby's just back from Mardi Gras. He was one of the floats.
"I took a Semtex today. I feel fantastic"-Liberal dim-bulb Bill Maher,
babbling about plastic explosives.