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On the Bush* Administration's 'Incompetence'

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Jacobin Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Mon Mar-05-07 11:42 AM
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On the Bush* Administration's 'Incompetence'
What's really at issue here is the extent to which problems with the military, specifically, and the government, generally, are a result of policy. The common explanation for the catastrophic results of many of the Bush administration's initiatives (from Iraq to New Orleans and back again) is that they are the result of "incompetence."

Incompetence, the lack of capacity or skill, is ultimately an exculpating trope. It insinuates that the plan, or effort, was sound and could have succeeded had it been competently carried out. Moreover, the incompetent are in way less liable: their lack of ability lets them off the hook. Thus, "incompetence" insulates the actors from accountability and leaves the policy itself unscathed. My personal opinion, which has recently been reinforced by much of what I read in Rajiv Chandrasekaran's Imperial Life in the Emerald City, is that the Bush disasters are a result of the administration's policies and not of some failure to effectively carry them out.

No one says, retrospectively, that Calvin Coolidge's failure to help the victims of 1927's Mississippi River flood was a result of incompetence. No one says that Mellon, with his inaction and insistence that the Great Depression would burn itself out through 'liquidation,' was incompetent. Both of these positions were wholly in keeping with the policies of the Coolidge and Hoover presidencies, policies that were not discredited until Roosevelt's victories and the institution of the New Deal. The problem, a problem that Waxman seems to be keenly aware of, is that as long as the government retains the same kind of policies, the nation will continue to suffer the same hardships. It is not until the beliefs that inform the ways in which the Bush administration runs the government are firmly linked to their consequences that the nation will stop voting for politicians who promulgate, and enact legislation based on, those creeds.

These policies will not (again) be discredited until they are tied to their reprehensible results. Insisting on the 'incompetence' of the Bush administration turns attention away from this linkage between policy and result. In fact, it insulates the policies while discrediting the men who are trying to implement them. It, thus, sets the stage for those policies to be enacted again.


http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/012794.php

This is from a post at TPM which I think is at the heart of the problems we are dealing with in framing. Waxman clearly 'gets it.' Other congresscritters, perhaps, not so much.

Quite insightful. I think we have talked around this issue a lot, but I don't recall it being described so clearly.
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PDJane Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Mon Mar-05-07 11:49 AM
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1. That's as clear and honest
As one can get.

It is the problem, along with the American noise machine and the religious right; ultimately, the populace needs to be taught to think for themselves.
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rock Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Mon Mar-05-07 11:51 AM
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2. Good point
'Incompetence' as opposed to 'malfeasance', which does let them off the hook.
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bullimiami Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Mon Mar-05-07 11:57 AM
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3. incompetence as opposed to criminal negligence.
which affirms their responsibility and confirms their culpability.
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ThomWV Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Mon Mar-05-07 12:00 PM
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4. I think that is a close assessment, but not entirely accurate.
I think this comes close to the problem but doesn't really capture it. It seems to me that the problem is a policy of inaction. Remember the call to arms; reduce the size of Government such that it could be drown in a bathtub. The Administration has not been able to avoid Congress funding programs that it feels are not a function of Government, but it has been very able to avoid keeping those programs operational. Bush didn't do away with FEMA, he simply rendered it inoperable by virtue of staffing it with people who did nothing what so ever that was directed toward fulfilling the Agency's mission. If you go through the Agencies and Departments one by one you continue to see the same thing. It is a policy of do-nothing staffed by people who feel no need to do anything. Sometimes its misrepresented as no policy at all, the first to go (a Treasury Secretary who's name escapes me at the moment) said as much. I don't think that's it though - I think its Norquest's prayer answered.
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