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January 29, 2006

Peter Principle in action

Imagine that you've been entrusted to manage the dispersal of $120 million in Iraqi oil revenues for the purposes of reconstruction, but $97 million of it can't even be accounted for and auditors can only find documentation to account for a mere $8 million of the $120 million total. What happens to you?

If you're the hand-picked puppet of George W. Bush you get an award.

Imagine that you are a disgraced expert on Arabian horses with a contrived resume claiming experience in emergency services that you don't in fact have, but despite that (or perhaps because of it) you've been appointed by George W. Bush to head FEMA. Imagine further that you've badly mismanaged the federal response to the greatest natural disaster in generations. What happens to you?

While New Orleans is going to hell in a handbasket, Bush and Brown are in San Diego, which is NOT experiencing a natural disaster, and Bush proclaims: "Brownie, you're doing a heckuva job."

Imagine that you are allegedly a fiscal conservative who manages to get in the White House with the help of some of your father's friends on the Supreme Court even though you lost the popular vote handily. The outgoing Democratic administration hands you a huge budget surplus which you promptly turn into a massive budget deficit. What happens to you?

You win another contested election on the strength of an Ohio vote that simply isn't believable but IS managed by your political allies.

That, my friends, is known as the Peter Principle in action.

America seriously is capable of soooo much more than this rank incompetence.

Posted by Kevin at January 29, 2006 03:20 PM