The Belgravia Dispatch: Wanted: Basic Competence

May 07, 2006

Wanted: Basic Competence

Hosenball (via Laura, who is all over the Goss story):

Old CIA hands were not sorry to see Goss go. But Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld may miss his former bureaucratic rival. The Pentagon has increasingly horned in on the CIA's territory, using Special Forces to run covert operations and gather intel. According to a former senior administration official who did not wish to be identified discussing high-level meetings, Rummy was only too glad to let Goss brief policymakers. Goss often appeared uncertain of his facts and tended to fumble and wander in his presentations. The more tangled up Goss became, the more Rumsfeld sensed he could steal the CIA's thunder.

Blogospheric and nascent MSM chit-chat about booze-infused risque poker games, nine-fingers and "Dusty" Foggo aside, it's (yet again) the woeful lack of competence this latest episode showcases that depresses most. I mean, if a spent force like Rumsfeld rues Gosses departure because someone more talented might impact his turf (and didn't so disingenuous Rummy recently tell us he's "not in the intelligence business" anyway?), we're putting in a pretty poor show indeed now almost five years after 9/11 in terms of fielding the best and brightest on the intelligence front. And then there is the White Houses so amateur handling of the announcement of Gosses resignation. If a replacement might have been appointed as early as Monday anyway, why not have waited a few days so the American people felt a sense of continuity, with the baton being passed from Goss to Hayden, so as to provide at least a token sense of an orderly transition? And doesn't the American public deserve better than having a retired DCI say that his abrupt resignation is "just one of those mysteries"? This is just breathtaking fare, especially given that we now have a new Chief of Staff who was supposed to bring some order and discipline to a White House that is tottering into irrelevance.

Of course I've written off this Administration, and I know many other Republicans who have too. The final (you know, final, final) bursting point, for me at least, might well have been Bush's obscenely child-like and indignant "I'm the decider, and I decide what's best" line announcing he was keeping Rumsfeld on. And so there (cue stomping of feet, all tantrum-like)! The flip side of the retired Generals calling for Rummy's head, ironically, is that I agree the President could not be seen to be sacking him as a direct result of military pressure. Despite my profound disdain for Rumsfeld, I view the import of ensuring civilian primacy over the military as critical and more important than any one man's immediate fate. But there are ways to ease someone out, and Bush is obstinately refusing to do so because, alas, he appears dependent on a failed war leader.

Look, I was talking to a partner at a leading private equity firm a few days back about the state of play in DC. He leans strongly Republican. The 'Decider' line came up. He said: "I mean, what the eff is this, a banana republic"? Indeed. We've had it. The government appears increasingly cretinized and dysfunctional. At this point, despite the bubble-headed idiocy of the Pelosi-wing, I can't help feeling thinking Republicans should be rooting for the Democrats to take control of the House in November, subpoena power and all. I mean, what are the arguments for Republicans keeping control? $100 oil rebates and other Fristian crapola? Or something else? Seriously, let's discuss the pros and cons of having the Democrats take the House in November. But let's do better than the war on terruh will be imperiled, OK? I'm open to both sides of this issue, and haven't really make up my mind definitively so am keen to see people's thoughts, but let's try to keep the discussion non-polemical, despite my admitedly somewhat shrill tone above.

UPDATE: Andrew says the Administration isn't dead, and sees Rove's fingerprints on the speed of execution here. Still, I can't fathom why they couldn't wait to push Goss out in time for the replacement pick to be named contemporaneously? But maybe I'm making a mountain out of a molehill on this point. My general point still holds however. Why did we have a DCI whose handpicked number 3 appears to have been rather on the ribald, clownish side? Who is minding the store? Where is the damn competence? How can it be that we do not have an umimpeachably serious, top-flight figure as DCI five years after 9/11? What the hell is going on? What do we need to do down in Washington, double the pay across the board for government servants? Or what?

Posted by Gregory at May 7, 2006 03:31 PM | TrackBack (0)

Comments

Despite my profound disdain for Rumsfeld, I view the import of ensuring civilian primacy over the military as critical and more important than any one man's immediate fate.

I find it unimaginable and unbelievable that Republicans see a principle here worth worrying about, but not one where the Administration claims the right to indefinitely detain an American citizen captured on American soil without giving him a hearing. Accordingly, it's all but impossible to attempt to convince you that it would be better for the country if the Dems won the House or the Senate; I don't have any real sense of what principle are important to Republicans, and how they'd order a list of them.

So the best I can offer is that divided government is accountable government, and absent accountability, you will get bad decisions, even where the deciders have the best intentions.

Posted by: SomeCallMeTim at May 7, 2006 05:03 PM | Permalink to this comment

How can it be that we do not have an umimpeachably serious, top-flight figure as DCI five years after 9/11?

I guess this is a rhetorical question, but I'll give the answer: George Bush is an incompetant failure.

How on earth the Republican party choose this joker as their presidential candidate in 2000 is truly a mystery to me. I mean, given everything we know about his life up till then, did anyone really think he would be a good president?

Posted by: weichi at May 7, 2006 06:42 PM | Permalink to this comment

The Sullivan update amounts to pointing out the following:

The Bush regime has never had any interest in governing the country or serving the common good. It has never wanted or tried to establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defense, or promote the general Welfare.

At its core, it has been an extended power grab, a semi-Constitutional coup combined with an asset-stripping operation that makes Enron look penny-ante.

And its core M.O. has been the manipulation of the press.

So: here's the good news! It can still exercise its core M.O.!

Of course, so far as improving life for Americans, undoing our budget disaster, shoring up America's standing in the world, crafting good policy or taking sure that the laws be faithfully executed, or doing anything else that governments are supposed to do--well, it's dead.

That's right--this administration isn't dead yet. It is among the undead, sucking the life from this poor, long-suffering country.

Posted by: that's alive? at May 7, 2006 08:03 PM | Permalink to this comment

I'm a liberal, but I think the biggest problem is that small-government conservatism is dead and our system doesn't function well without it. Tax cuts for rich people should never be the primary goal of conservatism, at most it should be a consequence of cutting unnecessary government spending. The simplified way I see government working properly is that liberals spend way too much money on pie-in-the-sky goals, then conservatives take power and cut out all of the waste that hasn't improved our society as a whole. Repeat ad nauseum and you have a functioning democracy.

It hasn't worked that way in decades, Bush and Reagan before him wasted far more money than any democrat would dream of (the military among others is an expensive animal) and no one acts as a check on that power. It must be clear to everyone by now that we can't go on like this indefinitely. Clinton is the only President in 50 years to balance the budget, which is the best example I can think of for how backwards and screwed up the system is.

And that doesn't even touch on the overwhelming incompetence, which I think has something to do with handing the bureaucracy over to people who believe in the laughable idea that nothing governments does ever works. Just because they can't manage worth a damn doesn't prove their point.

Posted by: Shalimar at May 7, 2006 09:14 PM | Permalink to this comment

i've deleted a comment above that employed rather crude racial epithets, in the interest of trying to keep this thread on the up and up. for those of you who saw it, i won't deign to respond to the accusations, except to say that they were patently false and insulting to me in the extreme. thanks

Posted by: greg at May 7, 2006 09:18 PM | Permalink to this comment

You were 100% right to delete my crude comment. Never mind it's the stuff I hear every day out here in the heartland. Out here among Rush's folks Pelosi is shorthand for feminism, minorites, environmentalism, or in other words liberalism as defined by conservatives. Never mind if she is cautiously moderate shes been labeled and put on the shelf as the liberal devil and that would be understood as the basis for offhand denigration such as "bubble-headed idiocy of the Pelosi-wing"

What pray tell then is the "bubble-headed idiocy of the Pelosi-wing" you were refering to. I know your a serious person and so this offhand contempt must have a serious core. Here we set aside crude prejudice as the basis for contempt . Surely you were referring to foreign affairs and policies she articulates. Her position on terrorism, the Middle East and military and intellegence affairs. I dont have a clue what they are so perhaps you could point out how unbearably stupid they are, how deserving of total the contempt you expressed in such an offhand way.

Posted by: rapier at May 7, 2006 11:35 PM | Permalink to this comment

"What the hell is going on? What do we need to do down in Washington, double the pay across the board for government servants? Or what?"

Well, think about it. What would it take to get you to take a position in this administration, or a visible position in any agency in this government. You would have to realize going in that you'll have no power, things will be run by incompetents with solely political goals, and your reputation damaged. A doubling of salary wouldn't come close.

Posted by: dave at May 8, 2006 12:17 AM | Permalink to this comment

I'm a liberal (got here from Balloon Juice) just wanted you to know up front.

IMO this is a very tough time for Republicans. But I have the best reason in the world for seeing that we get some balance in congress, oversight. This Republican congress hasn't done any oversight on anything. I came across an article the other day from Jan. of this year about the Democratic Senate Policy committee holding meetings about the bad water in Iraq. The last sentence in the article is "...no Republicans are participating in this inquiry." This outrages me! Why isn't the majority party demanding answers if there is bad water for our troops in Iraq, why? I wondered if the Democrats were forced into the basement again to hold their inquiry.

I read an article yesterday written about a kid in Iraq that told his mom he wasn't getting enough to eat in Iraq, plenty in Afganistan, not enough in Iraq. WHAT?

We need oversight. We haven't had any for five years and by God it's time. IMO that's the main reason to make sure we get back to checks and balances the way the founders intended it. Here are the links to the two articles, and if you aren't outraged right along with me, shame on you.

http://www.shns.com/shns/g_index2.cfm?action=detail&pk=TROOPS-HUNGER-05-02-06

http://abcnews.go.com/International/IraqCoverage/story?id=1533349

Posted by: Kewalo at May 8, 2006 04:54 AM | Permalink to this comment

(1) Kevin Drum has an alternative explanation ( http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2006_05/008761.php ) for why the press currently favors the "turf war" explanation over the "hookers" one for Goss' sudden departure -- which is simply that the reporters specializing in national security issues asked the question first of their sources and naturally got national-security type explanations. Only now are reporters of other types --such as that one for the NY Daily News -- starting to ask about more tabloidesque possible explanations.

(2) I shudder to report that -- according to both the NY Times and the Wash. Post -- Bush's main reason for choosing Hayden as Goss' replacement is that he really, really likes Hayden's furious defense of the warrantless-wiretap program. Indeed, the Post goes further and says that this is because the GOP (i.e., Rove) has now decided to fight the 2006 campaign primarily on this issue -- by insisting that any Democrat who opposes the totally unrestricted right of the President to wiretap anyone he damn well chooses, with no limits or independent monitoring whatsoever, is Pro-Terrorist:

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/05/07/washington/07cnd-cia.html?hp&ex=1147060800&en=0def9cfe0bd22808&ei=5094&partner=homepage

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/05/06/AR2006050601335.html

Posted by: Bruce Moomaw at May 8, 2006 06:10 AM | Permalink to this comment

You were 100% right to delete my crude comment. Never mind it's the stuff I hear every day out here in the heartland.

The only reason rapier's second comment hasn't been deleted yet is that Greg has likely gone to bed.

It'll be deleted when he gets to it. That's how conservatives believe dialogue forums should operate.

As far as shock and horror at racially charged comments that confront the ugly reality of racism in this country, few things are more hilarious than the pious, delicate coastal, and in this case, New York conservatives. Insulated as they are in their liberal, mostly non-racist 'enclaves', they're accosted when things we hear in Missouri every day are expressed showing just how bad the problem still really is.

Rapier, please stop pointing out to conservatives that good ol' American racism isn't a thing of the past.

Posted by: Ted at May 8, 2006 07:21 AM | Permalink to this comment

"Seriously, let's discuss the pros and cons of having the Democrats take the House in November."

A pro argument: gridlock. One party rule, particularly by this bunch, has been disasterous.

Posted by: um at May 8, 2006 12:14 PM | Permalink to this comment

Shalimar,

It's been over seventy-years since the US has had small-government conservatism in power (i.e., Hoover). The Eisenhower, Nixon, Reagan and Bush administrations have all exhibited an appetite for the expansion of federal power, control and spending.

What's different is that that (1) we put the clowns in charge, and are getting a clown government, (2) 9/11, which allowed the clowns to run freely, and (3) the oligarchy-evangelical alliance, in which the oligarchs get to screw us economically, in return for the evangelicals screwing us in other ways.

Posted by: Barry at May 8, 2006 04:15 PM | Permalink to this comment

Not only not waiting for Goss's replacement, but it seems
they didn't even vet Hayden well to figure out his MZM connection -
certainly not a scandal this White House needs brought up in
confirmation hearings, and certainly a connection that will be.
Guess I'll order that jumbo size popcorn after all.

http://www.tpmmuckraker.com/archives/000581.php

Posted by: Nullo at May 8, 2006 06:01 PM | Permalink to this comment

FILIBUSTER HAYDEN!!!

No more domestic spying without a national security warrant, please.

Posted by: bob at May 8, 2006 06:30 PM | Permalink to this comment

More and more Bush Jr reminds of another petulant heriditary ruler who never really grew up and thought he was a Supreme Warlord, All-Highest, etec. and was not limited by any human authority, ie Kaiser Wilhelm II! And yea, the Administration game plan for the Fall elections is to potray anyone who does not agree that Bush can wiretape, anybody at anytime without a warrant (we don't need any stinking warrants!) as pro-terrorist. It is wild and reckless, but given Bush''s unpopularity, it is the only card, Rove has left. The Administration may not be quite dead, like Arafat & Monty Python's Parrot, it many only be "resting".

Posted by: David All at May 8, 2006 10:34 PM | Permalink to this comment

Can basic competence come from the Democrats? Well let's not go overboard. Greg often sounds like someone who could have been a bigwig in a Gore State Department, but then again, so does Powell.

Instead Powell stood at Bush's right hand thru the election and selection. Subsequently he was humiliated on a daily basis as our foreign policy went off into the weeds. Then he quit. However he is still worshiped in all the Salons of money and power in America. His net worth runs up thru the 10 figures.

Let's do a thought experiment. Powell abandons Bush in late 99 and joins the Democratic party. He sees Cheney and Rumsfeld and the ideologically driven cons are planning for world domination with a hare brained plan. Bush loses, of course. Powell becomes SoS for Gore. He entacts and helps enact policies which result in far beter outcomes than the one we have had.

No matter. Powell would be the most hated man in the world among the military and intellegence elites along with the entire GOP from the Omaha Country Club and dropout dittoheads to every corner of the Beltway and every form of conservative known to man and God.

It's all well and good to talk policy but let's face it, when it comes to running the world only one group can do it and however they do it and however badly they do it there will be no acceptance of anyone who is not a member of The Party taking part.

Posted by: rapier at May 9, 2006 12:10 AM | Permalink to this comment

Gregory:
Christ on a crutch - pay federal employees more money! Why would we stuff more food into the guts when the fish is rotting from the head? Will higher salaries actually buy more competence or will it be seen as a reward for past, poor behavior?
Which makes for a better family? Dad comes home drunk, beats up his barefoot pregnant wife, punches the s**t out of Junior and kicks Lassie. Or drunk Dad comes home and at least tries to be civil because his wife demands his respect, Junior can dish it out and Lassie has big fangs. Seems to me, in my homey way, that no one can ever control what the other guy wants to do but we can control what he does by what we are willing to fight for. It's always easy to complain about what the other guy does (think Rush and Bill O') but as long as we allow ourselves to be stuck pointing the finger at the other guy (think Willie and Dubya) nothing will get better. Fighting just to be the winner has always led to the corruption of ideals. Bush's experience is once again showing us this truth as did Stalin before him and the tumbrels of the French Revolution before that and ad nauseum into the dark recesses of the past. If we are going to move forward from today, if we are going to make a better country, each of us has to take responsibility, each of us has to compel our own side to fight for what we believe in. Whether our side wins at this moment or not, the competition between well crafted and profoundly held ideals will produce a balanced compromise - what men call 'good government.'

Posted by: Paul Lucic at May 9, 2006 02:05 AM | Permalink to this comment

I haven't decided whether to welcome a Democratic takeover of the House. One thing, however, that I have seen missing from the "disgusted conservative" side of the 'sphere is an honest discussion of the costs and risks that such a takeover would entail. Here, I think, are some of the biggest:

First, any expansion of free trade is dead. Hastert squeezed CAFTA through by a single vote. If the Dems get the House, Bush needn't even bother pursuing any trade agreements in his last two years; they'll be dead on arrival.

Second, even the possibility of serious, desperately-needed entitlement reform is dead so long as the Democrats control any elected branch of government. Granted, it's not as though congressional Republicans have been beacons of courage on this issue. If the Democrats take over the House, however, it won't even worth expending the air to discuss reform until Republicans take it back--something that may not happen for a long time.

Third, it may even make the budget situation worse. The tax cuts won't be renewed, which will improve the budget but harm the economy; on nearly every spending issue, however, notwithstanding their wailing about the deficit, the Democrats' chief complaint is that the Republicans haven't been generous enough. The hope is that a Democratic takeover of the House would be a shock enough to remind Republicans that they are, in fact, Republicans, and then for gridlock to ensue. I'm afraid of the possiblity, however, that it may have the opposite effect: fearful, retrenched Republicans, terrified of further losses, may just cave every time House Democrats browbeat them over a spending initiative or accuse them of cutting funds for children.

Posted by: Dan Larsen at May 9, 2006 05:50 PM | Permalink to this comment

"It's been over seventy-years since the US has had small-government conservatism in power (i.e., Hoover). The Eisenhower, Nixon, Reagan and Bush administrations have all exhibited an appetite for the expansion of federal power, control and spending."

This myth needs to die. There hasn't been "small government" anything on these shores ever since Alexander Hamilton cajoled Congress into passing the Assumption Bill.

Part of the political success of right-wingers is due to their ability to harken back to some mythical past that is purely a construct of their own devising.

Posted by: sglover at May 9, 2006 08:59 PM | Permalink to this comment