The Reason for Bureaucrats
Mark Schmitt is absolutely right, below, but MORE BUREAUCRACY, PLEASE, is probably not the winningest slogan of our time. The problem, obviously, is that Americans--and not only Americans--would rather pin a face on a problem than think systemically. Perhaps this is an automatic deficiency of democratic governments, where the citizens vote for a person, who by definition is to be held "accountable." Fixing the name and the face passes for effective action.
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Minimally, in the face of Bush and the Republican government system that enshrined him, we ought to be saying: Give us honest, effective public servants, not cronies, cheats, cheapskates, claques, and corruption. This is a step beyond the usual recoil: THROW THE BASTARDS OUT.
I would love to see it, but it is going to be difficult Todd. The GOP has rigged the rules of the system to operate the way it is now. No way for the dems to engage in any meaningful oversight and reform. Is the American public (as a whole) finally at the tipping point with Katrina? I would hope so, but polls suggest otherwise...
September 14, 2005 11:49 AM | Reply | Permalink
Todd, i always half-liked the old-style (authentic) conservative slogan: "government should do few things but do them well."
I don't think government should do "few" things, but it should do what it does "well."
i don't think that's such a hard sell for the dems....
September 14, 2005 11:55 AM | Reply | Permalink
Thanks for doing this "danger, danger, warning, warning" thing right away. I do indeedly think it is important to keep Dems from doing deja vus allover again.
Not the winniest slogan of all time? Surely you jest. It is what caused the death of the Democratic majority. Methinks that Mark Schmitt might want to consider putting in to Josh to edit the title of his post for the good of the party? Not to have it in the archive? :-)
While you were on it, I was pondering in a very similar vein on viviane's thread on "the purpose of goverment, perhaps some things I wrote there fit here as well.
Shouldn't we also keep in mind that Katrina triumphalism might be a bit too optimistic as time goes on. It all depends on how the locals fare in the reconstruction phase vs. the Feds, as well as the economy, and investigation into "what went wrong," and how the Bush's do their thing there over the next year. Over time, nuance sinks in with the general populace and outrage subsides, always. (With Iraq, for example, it took an exceptionally long time, but it is finally happening.)
September 14, 2005 11:56 AM | Reply | Permalink
Libertine:
I would hope so, but the polls suggest otherwise.
Polls directed toward response to Katrina suggest otherwise. Broader-based polls, however, asking the 'right/wrong' direction question suggest the American people aren't so sure anymore about the conservative's agenda for America. I think the Dems have a great opportunity to tie all that is wrong with both domestic and foreign policy to the conservatives management of our government. Heaven knows the democrats have gotten little if anything through the process in the past four years. The conservatives DID it, now we have to make sure they OWN it.
September 14, 2005 11:57 AM | Reply | Permalink
Polls directed toward response to Katrina suggest otherwise. Broader-based polls, however, asking the 'right/wrong' direction question suggest the American people aren't so sure anymore about the conservative's agenda for America.
And the polls leading up to the '04 election said a plurality of the American public thought the country was going in the wrong direction, Bryan...and they still voted Bush in for a second term. I don't know the depth of the public's convictions on the "direction of the country" question...
September 14, 2005 12:04 PM | Reply | Permalink
funny thing is, Howard, in my experience, like 99.5% of bureaucrats will tell you the same exact thing. :-)
September 14, 2005 12:14 PM | Reply | Permalink
you know, artappraiser, in my relatively limited contact with federal bureaucrats (i've dealt with people the fish and wildlife service, the park service, and the forest service), most federal bureaucrats do want to do well, but sop, red tape, and idiot (often appointed) bosses get in the way....
September 14, 2005 12:23 PM | Reply | Permalink
I said "a plurality of the American people" in my post above. That is not accurate...it was only a majority.
September 14, 2005 12:23 PM | Reply | Permalink
I second your statement about recent polls. There is a bit more as regards that here.
September 14, 2005 12:49 PM | Reply | Permalink
Josh points out on TPM that the Rove man is now in charge.
And I would point out that we do not know yet whether he will use this opportunity to push his dream of smaller Fed government with shining examples
OR
possibly, which would much more deviously detrimental to Dems ability to use this all to getting back in power,
he might just do this one "the Dem way"!
There is a very subtle suggestion in the way the article is written that the latter is what he might do. That's because the purpose is to "get this danged New Orleans problem out of the way" in order to prevent Katrina from swamping his second-term ambitions on Social Security, taxes and Middle East democracy-building.
What's the good of the power of being president if you can't use it when you want to hand out favors to get people to shut up, even if those favors are not part of your general governing policy, so that you can move on with your agenda, especially in your second term? And especially if what you do accomplish in your second term is important to the future of the party as the Rove man sees it? No principle is too sacrosant to drop momentarily in order to advance general principles; this actually is the art of democratic politics--except that the horse trading is usually done between members of different parties and not within the party! Just struck me that that is what Rove is most about: he moved the political horse trading inside the party as never before.
September 14, 2005 1:16 PM | Reply | Permalink
I don't know where anyone gets the idea that "More Bureaucracy, Please" is my idea of a CAMPAIGN SLOGAN. It is certainly not. It's just a slightly ironic title for a post that makes the point that a respected, professional group of sub-managers with some autonomy are key to making agencies work, and that trying to control these agencies like marionettes from the White House is a recipe for disaster, and is even more significant than the specific qualifications of top people like Chertoff and Brown.
I think the issue of centralized, autocratic control from the White House might have some political salience, but it would take some work to craft the message.
But not everything has to make a good slogan. Some things are just the right thing to do.
September 14, 2005 8:54 PM | Reply | Permalink