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Saturday, September 10, 2005
Why Is Bush So Reluctant To Fire People?
I have to admit that even I am finally becoming restless and growing unhappy with President George W. Bush. Why won't he fire people? Sure, he got rid of a few people, notably ex-Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill (whose primary malfeasance was not being ideologically on-side -- a totally valid reason for getting the axe, by the way), but this administration seems unusually reluctant to terminate anybody. After the CIA bumbled its way through the 9/11 saga, Bush not only refused to get rid of then-CIA director George Tenet, but gave the fellow the prestigious Presidential Medal of Freedom. I'm not saying Tenet is necessarily incompetent or responsible for 9/11, but whatever happened to respondeat superior? And yes, he appears at long last to be pushing the clueless Michael D. Brown out the door as head of FEMA long after serious public-relations damage has been inflicted, but now the administration is taking the pressure off the scandal-plagued bureaucrat extraordinaire Kofi Annan. According to today's Washington Times,
Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice yesterday backed Kofi Annan's continued stewardship over the United Nations despite a scathing report on the secretary-general's oversight of the Iraq oil-for-food program, but she said the scandal demands urgent overhaul of the U.N. secretariat. "We believe that we will continue to work with the secretary-general, and we are confident that he will support the kinds of reforms that are needed to try and make sure that this sort of thing does not happen again," Miss Rice said. "We are going to continue to press management and secretariat reforms. They have to be concrete reforms, not just hortatory language about how important it is to reform," she said. "In the light of the oil-for-food problem, I think it's even more urgent that those get done."
Of course Bush can't literally fire Annan, but he could press for his removal. I gather there is something going on in the background or the administration wants a weakened secretary-general at the helm of the awful United Nations, but even so why didn't Condi just refrain from commenting on Annan? After going through all the trouble of recess-appointing John Bolton to be U.S. ambassador to the U.N., why let up now?
(brought to you by vadum.blogspot.com)
Posted by Matthew Vadum on September 10, 2005 | Permalink
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Comments
I think your conclusions - 'Bush does not readily fire people' ("this administration seems unusually reluctant to terminate anybody") and 'What's with Annan' are rather amorphous and hypothetical. They are so speculative that they provide no grounds for debate - other than yet more speculation.
First, you are assuming that people OUGHT to be fired. OK.
But then, you have no facts that inform us of the nature of the threshold, the line between 'staying' and 'not staying'. You do not inform us of this threshold, and even, whether you have one, and if you do, how it differs from one possibly held by Bush.
And, you don't provide, never mind a specific list, but even a percentage of 'those fired' and 'those who (according to you) should be fired but are not fired'. So, it's hard to find the data to support your conclusion of this administration's hesitation in firing people.
You move into a report that he DID get rid of a few people (e.g., O'Neill' but then, move onto Tenet. How many is a few?
If Tenet is 'not necessarily incompetent or responsible for 9/11', as you say, then, what are the grounds for dismissal? Are your grounds different from those of Bush?
Bush is sidelining Brown of FEMA, yet, you dismiss this action with "long after serious damage has been inflicted". How long??? One week?
And, you immediately counter this action with the Kofi Annan example - whom you admit Bush can't fire. Since Bush can't fire him - then, what problems would it make for the UN, with those who support Annan - if the US, the US, and only the US screamed for his head? Why not simply sit back and let the Reports and their clear anti-Annan accusations come out, and seep into the UN mafiosa?
My problem with your outline is its lack of specific data, and its focus within only your perspective of who Bush should keep and who Bush should fire.
Posted by: ET | 2005-09-10 12:32:12 PM
Dude: This is just a blog entry, a half-baked series of thoughts, not a dissertation. Pay me and I'll write a few thousand words, heavily annotated. Take a sedative.
Posted by: Matthew Vadum | 2005-09-10 2:26:36 PM
Matthew - Why should a blog only function as 'a half-baked series of thoughts'? Why shouldn't blogs be based in facts and valid correlations?
Why should someone pay you to do what you should have done in the first place - i.e., write something that is factual and logically grounded?
Blogs are extremely important in our modern world; they aren't just for 'half-baked thoughts'; any gossip column in a tabloid or pop TV provides nothing but that. But blogs - as journalism used to do - function to explore and communicate facts and the analysis of facts.
You failed to do either task - and insults are a response of a child, not an adult.
Posted by: ET | 2005-09-10 3:06:24 PM
I don't think, ET, that web logs can reasonably be quite so narrowly defined as that. I agree with your initial critique, but not your universal constraints.
Posted by: Tony | 2005-09-10 3:20:20 PM
Tony - you are right; blogs can't function only within 'facts and logic'; there has to be room for musings and pure hypothesis formation and even fictional accounts.
My critique against Matthew's post was that it was presented to us as actually a fact-based analysis. Data was provided (names, events); conclusions were made - any my critique was that both facts and conclusions were weak/invalid.
Now- if he had simply presented his post to us as indeed a 'half-baked' outline, as his own unverified musings and questions..then, we could have responded to it as such. People might have been able to provide specific data; some others might have come up with conclusions, based on this data, that differed from Matthew's.
But you are right; it would be a great disservice to knowledge if we only focused on 'facts'. I mean that. Exploring hypotheses and 'the virtual' is extremely important. After all, many laws in science were postulated years before they could ever be proven by experiments.
Posted by: ET | 2005-09-10 4:33:37 PM
ET, with all due respect, your comments are a tad anal.
Posted by: Michael Dabioch | 2005-09-10 5:10:41 PM
You did get me thinking though, ET, which is a big part of what I like about web logs. When I think of web logs like the Shotgun and SDA, for example, which have a particular culture of interaction, I think of the communication of ideas, hypothesis, theories, thesis, plans, designs, debate, opinions, arguments, pamphleteering, rants, link farms, first hand reporting, story telling, quotes & aphorisms, in some cases even implementation coordination, &c.
For me these places do not usually reflect the more formal parts of thinking, rather I find them more like the campus pub (where, arguably, most of the best debates and great inspirations on campus happen ;-)
There will always be the problem, even in the campus pub, of people who come looking for a fight instead of an argument (or something like that). In a real pub I might have to change tables, or even leave, even if I like the place. But in the virtual pub, all I have to do is move my middle finger over the mouse scroll wheel. Cool.
Posted by: Tony | 2005-09-10 5:39:34 PM
Michael- please explain.
I'm afraid I don't see why a requirement for data to substantiate conclusions is 'a tad anal'. It's the basis of science, it's the basis of critical reason, it's the basis of all reliable research.
If you are presenting a situation, which you claim exists in reality and don't ground your conclusions in both factual data and reliable correlations, then, you are off into the nothingness of postmodernism..where you can say anything about anything without regard for facts or logic.
So- you have to make up your mind. IF you want to analyze a situation and find out the truth about that situation - then - you have to base that analysis on facts, not speculation - and your causal links have to be valid - not speculative.
Posted by: ET | 2005-09-10 5:45:24 PM
The problem, ET, is that the use of the conditional "If you want to analyze a situation and find out the truth about that situation, then...", as a definitive argument, requires that the antecedent be true. In this case it's not.
There are no pure Vulcans here, we're all at least half Human. I know I am.
Posted by: Tony | 2005-09-10 6:01:59 PM
I think, Matthew, that the reasons why Bush doesn't run around firing people every time the opposition demands it are the same as the reasons why you wouldn't if you had his job. And I think this applies to anyone in that job, independent of their policy positions.
Posted by: Tony | 2005-09-10 6:14:05 PM
Berners-Lee on the Read/Write Web
BBC News Online has a transcript of a TV interview with Sir Tim Berners-Lee on the read/write web. He makes some sensible and insightful comments, but has to spend a lot of time fending off guilt-trip questions from the interviewer about some of the awful things people do on the Web.>>>more
http://crofsblogs.typepad.com/
Posted by: maz2 | 2005-09-10 6:21:26 PM
Tony - I'm not sure that I get your point...about the 'more formal parts of thinking'.
I don't see that the site where one does one's thinking is relevant. What matters is, if one is interested in searching for truth, that one's search includes factual data, not unproven assertions - and that one's conclusions are logical and validly grounded in the data.
Anyone can say anything; that's why we have groups focused around the Loch Ness Monster, and groups focused around aliens, and etc, etc.
I can think of group 'brainstorming sessions' with colleagues where we have finally come up with the operating infrastructure we were searching for...BUT - this infrastructure then had to be grounded in hard data and actual causal connections...or..we'd end up just being 'a lot of talk'.
What I'm trying to say, is that there's talk, talk, talk...and then, there's talk grounded in reality.
Posted by: ET | 2005-09-10 6:31:52 PM
An op-ed does not necessarily elucidate on every premise that underlies it. It assumes foreknowledge. To have to elaborate on everything would be positively exhausting.
For example, I characterized Michael Brown of FEMA as "clueless." Brown appeared on national TV saying he didn't know the Superdome in New Orleans had evacuees in it, a fact that TV viewers had known for days. It was a monumental mistake that called into question Brown's competence. Also, would you seriously dispute that Kofi Annan is "scandal-plagued"?
You may disagree with what I wrote or think the evidentiary snippets I threw in the post are insufficient, but don't go through your tired, pedantic explanation of logical fallacies and the principles of rhetoric. You make me roll my eyes. Boring, boring, boring.
There is, however, one thing I wish I had elaborated on more. I am growing dissatisfied with Bush because he is failing to deliver on his domestic policy promises. The tax cuts were too small, the estate tax is poised to rise from the grave in 2011 or so, the highway bill is loaded with pork-barrel projects, spending in general is out of control, the tort system remains largely unreformed, the administration doesn't have control over the borders, and so on and so on. (I'm pissed at Congress too, but that's another story.)
Also, ebt, if your jibe was directed at me, I do not think Bush is stupid or incompetent, just slow-moving at times and placing too high an emphasis on loyalty at the expense of competence.
And Tony, I'm not saying Bush should do everything the opposition demands, but sometimes heads gotta roll. That's politics.
Posted by: Matthew Vadum | 2005-09-10 6:42:53 PM
Well, ET, if you're not sure you get my point about the more formal parts of thinking, that probably means I'm not explaining myself well. As an example of the most formal thinking, I would say, a graduate thesis defense, or a referred article in a scientific journal. The least formal: discussing the weather with your neighbour, over the fence, as a simple matter of gracious behaviour. Web logs are somewhere in between, each in its own place.
Posted by: Tony | 2005-09-10 6:56:07 PM
Rice: Washington Times>>
"Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice yesterday backed Kofi Annan's continued stewardship over the United Nations despite a scathing report on the secretary-general's oversight of the Iraq oil-for-food program, but she said the scandal demands urgent overhaul of the U.N. secretariat.">>
Britain throws weight behind Annan in bid to salvage reforms
Telegraph.co.uk - 1 hour ago
By Philip Sherwell in New York. Britain has played a key role shoring up the position of Kofi Annan, the beleaguered United Nations Secretary General, in the hope of salvaging a last-ditch deal on UN reform ..>>>
googlenewscanada
Posted by: maz2 | 2005-09-10 7:11:53 PM
I agree, Matthew, that metaphorically "heads have to roll", if only to discourage others from ever starting to think that they can get away with whatever they want. There can be no trustworthy delegation of responsibility without the concomitant requirements for accountability. Accountability must not just happen, it must be seen to happen. It didn't seem clear to me that that was your original point, but I understand now.
Posted by: Tony | 2005-09-10 7:12:19 PM
It's not just Bush. How many of Martin/Chretiens cabinet have resigned or been fired due to incompetence? How many should have?
The idea that politicians and senior bureaucrats have to take personal responsibility for their portfolios seems to have gone out the window worldwide.
Posted by: m0nkyman | 2005-09-10 7:38:32 PM
Further thought re ebt: "making a compelling case for having his posting privileges revoked."
Who appointed you Lord and Arbiter of this blog?
Posted by: Matthew Vadum | 2005-09-10 7:53:01 PM
But it is a matter of degree. One doesn't want to fire a trustworthy general just because some captain or major goofed up, especially when said general is actually the best person you have to solve the problem. That said, I too am not happy with the degree to which the notion of ministerial responsibiliy seems to have been thrown out the window.
Posted by: Tony | 2005-09-10 7:59:43 PM
You are a bitter person, ebt. I pity you.
Posted by: Matthew Vadum | 2005-09-11 8:29:11 PM
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