A different view

A Matter of Competence

I obviously have way too much time. Or maybe it's the fact that I have a television set on my desk with cable access. But I do listen to cable news channels too much of the time.

Reports say that a very small percentage of Americans watch cable news. Maybe what's said in these programs don't really matter. It can be a lot of fun to watch, especially when David Gregory and Scott McLellan go toe-to-toe.

But more and more often these day I'm hearing the term 'incompetence' used to describe the current government. From both the right and the left. Targeting both congress and the administration.

Whether it's about the Iraq war clean-up, Terri Shiavo, quail hunting, catching OBL, or forcing out Paul Hackett, people from all sides are getting disgusted with the regular players in politics today.

Local politics moves left and right, and has occasional dust-ups like Tom Noe in Ohio or Arnold's special election in California.

But it's the Democrats and Republicans, Congressmen, Senators, and Whitehouse that are getting accused of stupidity more and more often. I often wonder how this group can make so many bad decisions?

I did get a hint of a reason on a recent trip to a conference in Washington DC. Appropriately, we were in a Senate building.

Expert after expert got up and declared truths that were based on something just said. Not anything based on actual facts or that would make it through a basic logic class. But like a feedback loop, these politicians, lobbyists, and think tankers tell each other the same thing over and over until they come to accept it on faith.

Lets face it. Hillary's not going to be President. Republicans are going to be in charge for a while because there are no Democratic alternatives. Risk taking is dead in the US and being the one true distinctintive character trait we had we're no different than any other country and all that we have left is our hubris, something we ridicule in France all the time. Only Biden is impressed with Biden. Harry Reid isn't really a fighter and isn't giving them hell. The politicians that went to DC for one term to clean up the town are still there and are now part of the problem. And bribes by businesses are destroying our infrastructure as those same companies move all their resources off-shore where they'll be safe, along with the CEO's bank accounts. Why do you think Caribbean banks now have all that money? And we're not going to see any real changes any time soon.

There are a lot of good people in America. There are some really good people. But we seem to have a shortage of great people. It's too bad, we were once great. And more than just competent.

posted by don1one @ 7:11 PM