There is an interesting post at the Daily Kos by Mentarch detailing the “Eight Principles of Incompetence“. Now, I’m not sure that this list constitutes a manifesto, guiding light, or even a footnote in a Polysci text of the future. But the author has cogently reduced to writing some observations that I have struggling to put into words. I tip my hat.
Much has been said about the growing problem with Cheney. There is precious little to say about this fascist that is new. Cheney is doing a fine job of self destructing without my input. Mentarch has highlighted many of Cheney’s questionable actions over time with links to www references. It is hard to escape the conclusion that the electorate is collectively incompetent sometimes.
But I would like to observe that the USA might have been well served by a parliamentary form of government, especially in this present troubled stretch of history. I think there are merits to a system that can vote out troublesome and destructive executives like Bush-Cheney without having to wait for the election timer to run out. Impeachment is not the same as a vote to form a new government. And if ever the USA needed to have a different executives in government, it is now.
In fact, one has to answer the question of why parliamentary systems proliferated during the 20th century while the American model as set forth by the US Constitution remains largely limited to the USA. Why hasn’t our system been more closely copied? Could there be a better way?
The US needs a president that is less showhorse and more workhorse. We need administrators who can manage the executive branch more effectively. And we need executives who are not beholden to absolute doctrines and are willing to re-examine their fundamental assumptions on occasion.
The Bush-Cheney epoch has had a retrograde effect on American civil liberties, privacy, the freedom of assembly, and America’s credibility as a leading force for the advance of civilization. This damage will take many people a long time to make right.
Obviously we will not change the structure of government in the next 25 years. We will not be able to yank bad executives out of office midterm for incompetence. Bad executives will hold on to their office for the duration, enacting laws that benefit subscribers of their particular creed. They’ll have to commit a felony and be shamed into resignation like Nixon.
The USA needs better checks and balances to protect the republic and its diverse constituency from Trojan Horse carriers of fringe doctrines and monotonic ideologies. I’d rather have a president who cracks the books once in a while rather than one whose sole intellectual reflex is to whisper to iron-age deities. I’d prefer to have a president who thinks analytically rather than devotionally.
Lamentations on Chemistry 
Far more than anything else with this administration, I am drawn back to some comments that Henry Kissenger had written not too long ago. “High office teaches decision making, not substance. It consumes intellectual capital; it does not create it. Most high officials leave office with the perceptions and insights with which they entered; they learn how to make decisions but not what decisions to make.” It’s the “intellectual capital” comment that rings truest with me. It was part of a larger article that I am kicking myself for not saving, and the op-ed made a sweeping criticism of all administrations, include the one he was part of. He saw these flaws as inherent in the job.
To me, the current administration has a world view that is stuck at Jan, 2000 -or you could argue Sept 11, 2001- but in any case, they have not changed as the world has changed.
My fix: a 6 year term that can be repeated, but not serially. Take a break. Go home, read, watch TV, go to grocery store and find out what a bar code reader is. If you want the job back, feel free to get elected as many times as you want. Just not as an incumbent.
Hi John, Kissingers comment is certainly well put. It would be fun to read the whole article.
Vote “NO”
in 2008
looks like it was published in ’79
http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,916938,00.html
Hi Bill, Good find! I’ve been reading it and located John’s quote on page 10. I have a feeling that Henry the K wouldn’t agree with the blather I have advanced.
I don’t think decision making has been learned in this case. Pres. Bush appears to know what he wants, but he doesn’t seem to have the ability (or desire) to evaluate what he wants and how best to get it – policies seem to be drawn up with the idea that something will magically happen to make them occur (consistent, unfortunately, with his statement that he believed himself chosen by God to lead – he expects that God will do whatever is necessary to make h(H)is desires real). For the most part, Pres. Bush seems to think himself above both the law and cause and effect – not a stance consistent with good decisionmaking. When his wishes do not turn into reality, he acts like a dictator, hoping that he can cow reality into submission as easily as his opponents (or compatriots, for that matter). I don’t really think that this constitutes good decisoonmaking without significant distortion of the concept.
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