Jan 11 2006
Why Hold Elections?
Michael Barone skewers James Risen who is upset that our elected leaders lead, and they do not defer to career bureaucrats in making decisions:
Risen: Well, I–I think that during a period from about 2000–from 9/11 through the beginning of the gulf–the war in Iraq, I think what happened was you–we–the checks and balances that normally keep American foreign policy and national security policy towards the center kind of broke down. And you had more of a radicalization of American foreign policy in which the–the–the career professionals were not really given a chance to kind of forge a consensus within the administration. And so you had the–the–the principles–Rumsfeld, Cheney and Tenet and Rice and many others–who were meeting constantly, setting policy and really never allowed the people who understand–the experts who understand the region to have much of a say.
Couric: You suggest there was a lot of power grabbing going on.
So, “the career professionals were not really given a chance to kind of forge a consensus within the administration.” Evidently, such consensus-building is how government is supposed to operate. Instead, you had folks like “the principles [sic, presumably transcriber’s mistake]—Rumsfeld, Cheney and Tenet and Rice and many others—who were meeting constantly, settling policy, and really never allowed the people who understand—the experts who understand the region to have much of a say.”
What a scandal! Presidential appointees like Donald Rumsfeld, George Tenet, and Condoleezza Rice and an elected official like Dick Cheney were meeting together! How dare they? And they were settling policy! Astonishing! What will such people dare to do next?
This is what the left is all about folks. When democratically elected officials do something they disagree with, it is time to impeach (as opposed to support our country’s elected leaders and our process). Why hold elections if they people we elected to direct the country don’t do it?? What is sad, is Risen naively thinks democracy is a waste of time. More Barone:
Elected officials like the president and vice president and top presidential appointees should sit quietly in their chairs. They should not meet, at least not very often. They should wait for career government employees—”the experts who understand the region”—to “forge a consensus.” Policy should always be kept “toward the center,” regardless of what the American people or their elected president think.
Sounds like a dictatorship where elections are held to pretend the people have a say, but the real power is in the hands of people completely insulated from the people and basically in their jobs for life. Sounds like communism to me.
Hat Tip Lori Byrd
You’d think there should be a way to clean house in all of those bureaucratic snake-pits. It’s certainly nothing new, but the anti-Bush bunch have reached an incredible new low with their determination. Funny thing is, the “power grabbing” is exactly opposite of Risen’s really rather stupid point.
It is the malcontents among the “career governmental employees” who are attempting a ‘power grab.’
I recall a WSJ op-ed or editorial, early in the Clinton Administration, where a Clinton appointee had attempted to make what sounded like reasonable and badly needed changes in his new domain. The entrenched personnel didn’t like the new rules, and succeeded in getting rid of the appointee.
Apparently one of the reasons we’re hearing so much of usually-under-the-radar temper tantrums, is that our current CIC has appointed serious people who won’t be intimidated by phrases like, “But we’ve always done it this way.”