One of my main themes is thatno one should get our money or our respect unless they EARN it.
That is the rule you face every day at work. Why in the HELL are so many people exempted from it?
I am sick and tired of people patiently reelecting the same people while everything goes to hell.
I am sick and tired of people recognizing a “professional journalist” when “professional journalism” is going down the tubes because nobody trusts them any more.
I have said to many people many times that when a crisis occurs, the people who are called in to deal with it are called in precisely because they CAUSED it. The response to this is the bovine look I am so used to.
When something collapses, it is the experts in that field who have failed. When the Soviet Union collapsed and not one professional froeign policy expert, least any of the professional Sovietologists, had predicted it, who did they call in to deal with the situation?
They called in foreign policy experts and ESPECIALLY professional Sovietologists, of course.
And leading the parade like the man with banner “Excelsior” was the Professional Journalists who held the banner that said,
“Let’s not try to assign blame. Let us pull together and deal with the problem before us. Let’s look to the future, not debate the past.”
Let me ask you a question. When you make a costly screwup in a real job, how often does your boss say:
“Let’s not try to assign blame. Let us pull together and deal with the problem before us. Let’s look to the future, not debate the past.”
I would not want to deal with a company that thought like that.
Yet our entire national policy is run on EXACTLY that basis.
On September 11, 2001, I wrote in Whitakeronline that not one single intelligence “expert” would suffer the slightest inconvenience for what happened that day.
In fact I predicted that all that would result from that disaster would be a PROMOTION for everyone who helped cause it.
Right again, Bob.
Our intelligence experts and terror experts are the same ones we had on September 10, 2001.
Except that they have been promoted and have bigger budgets now.
Which is what I predicted on September 11, 2001.
Gosh darnit, we can’t catch Osama Ben Laden, can we?
Well don’t worry about it. Our top experts are on the job.
The examples are endless.
And everybody wonders what’s wrong.
#1 by joe rorke on 12/26/2005 - 7:04 pm
No, not everybody wonders what’s wrong. Somebody knows what’s wrong. Maybe (probably) several somebodies know what’s wrong. Surely, you know what’s wrong. Specifically, I mean. But not EVERYBODY is wondering what’s wrong. The people who know what’s wrong just won’t talk about it.
#2 by Bob on 12/26/2005 - 7:12 pm
But, Joe, if they don’t SAY it, why should I consider them to be anybody?
#3 by whitake on 12/27/2005 - 1:07 pm
I used to wonder why the CIA has such a terrible track record
at analyzing intelligence. Then I found out that almost all
CIA analysts are recruited from the Ivy League colleges.
Later, I found out that you can’t be hired by the CIA to
analyze intelligence if you’re over 37.
Okay, so that’s two good reasons for their lousy track
record.
Supposedly, they’re working on the Ivy League fixation.
(I don’t know how to italicize “Supposedly” here.)
Another intelligence agency supposedly doesn’t have an
age ceiling for civilian analysts.
#4 by Anonymous on 12/27/2005 - 3:32 pm
I think that most people know that something is wrong, even if they are snowed about what, exactly. It seems that the truth must out soon, whether it is a disaster or not. Shari