By Ian Welsh
In a notebook many years ago I wrote the following:
Getting a job is 90% appearance, 10% ability.
Doing a job is 90% ability, 10% appearance.
Keeping a job is 75% appearance, 25% ability.
Therefore appearance is more important than ability."
I didn't add "getting promoted", but if I had it would have been about 80% appearance, and 20% ability.
I'm reminded of this in thinking about the Bush administration and Republicans in general. The truth is simple - Republicans preside over worse economies and worse budgets and this has been true for a long time. Yet, in the last few years Republicans managed to take over the Presidency, both chambers of Congress, and damn near the courts.
Getting a job is 90% appearance. Republicans promised, in effect, free money. They outspent liberals and reduced taxes. What's not to like? They went to war and didn't ask for any sacrifices from ordinary citizesn. What's not to like?
So what went wrong? That part about keeping a job being 25% ability. Let's face it, if George Bush and co. hadn't been completely and utterly incompetent and corrupt beyond what anyone could have predicted (leading to my rule 1 of the Bush administration "it's always worse than you think") then Republicans would be cruising to victory in 2006. Not much competence was required - just enough to win a war with a nation whose army had imploded under a decade of sanctions. Just enough to not spend too much more money than was coming in. Just enough to rescue someone, anyone, from New Orleans and to rebuild something, anything, in New Orleans.
More:
http://agonist.org/ian_welsh/20061016/appearance_is_everything_reality_nothing