Molly Ivins: "Our president tootles merrily along...."

AUSTIN, Texas -- Today's fun challenge is "Spot the Next Brownie." In this fab game for the whole family, review a list of Bush administration cronies in office and see if you can pick the next Michael "Heckuva Job" Brown, another disaster waiting for a hurricane to happen.

Scope out the Bird Flu Czar from Amtrak. Stewart Simonson is now in charge of "the protection of the civilian population from acts of bioterrorism and other public health emergencies," according to his government biography. He is also in charge of ensuring the country has adequate vaccines and antiviral meds to combat an avian flu epidemic. This would be peachy-keen if Simonson had any experience in public health, bioterrorism, epidemics or even management. Unfortunately, he's a political lawyer. As he recently told a congressional subcommittee, "We're learning as we go."

Simonson's rabbi is former Gov. Tommy Thompson of Wisconsin, who hired him out of law school, took him to Washington as deputy general counsel at Health and Human Services and then got him the job as general counsel of Amtrak. Ed Garvey, a well-known lawyer in Wisconsin political circles, told The Nation magazine: "He's a political hack, a sycophant. People just laughed when he was appointed to Amtrak, but when word came out that he was in charge of bioterrorism, it turned to alarm. When you realize that people's lives are at stake, it's frightening. It's just one of those moments when you say, 'Oh, my God.'"

Rep. Henry Waxman, R-Calif., who may be the last grown-up left in Washington, has also pointed out Simonson's professional inadequacies. See the article by Jeremy Scahill in the current issue of The Nation for disturbing details. While we're still slugging it out over who's responsible for the gross failures and/or distortions of American intelligence before the war, our president tootles merrily along, fixing things in his own inimitable way. Late last month, he appointed nine campaign contributors, including three longtime fund-raisers, to the Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board. According to Newsweek, this is a 16-member panel of folks from the private sector who "advise the president on the quality and effectiveness of U.S. intelligence efforts." .....

http://www.creators.com/opinion_show.cfm?columnsName=miv

:scared

Beam me up Scotty!

--IMM:hi:

:beer:

Welcome to DU!! :toast:

and so far -- nada. I'd settle for a sideways slip through time if they'd just open up a portal.

But, as you see, here I am. Not only on THIS planet, which is pretty nice, so far as inhabitable planets go, but in THIS particular Time Frame -- and that truly is a bummer. I mean, in all of Earth's history has there ever been a time quite like THIS?

I remember rolling on the floor laughing my ass off (before there was a need for an aliteration of that phrase) watching Ronald Reagan on the TV. I think it was when they unveiled the refurbished Statue of Liberty or something like that. He and Nancy were just standing there with fireworks going off around them with the stupidest most plastic grins on their faces, looking like clueless clowns in later-Twientieth century Mr and Mrs President drag. I mean, what struck me as funny was the realization that HE was THE MOST POWERFUL MAN ON EARTH. I mean, the fucking LEADER of the so called "Free World." I mean, way more power than Cezar or Alexander the Great or any other single human being we could ever name throughout all our history.

And I'm thinking, "This is the best we can do?"

Well, that was a long time ago, my friend, relatively speaking. And Reagan was a god-damned genius compared to this ASSterisk In Chief.

Yeah. I want OFF THIS PLANET. I want OUT OF THIS TIME FRAME. I want an END to this nightmare called "history." HIS STORY in deed! I think they're all on crack.

I mean, what about GREATNESS, People?
What about INTELLIGENCE and INTEGRITY at a bare minimum?

Apparently no one but us off-worlders are even paying attention.

BMU

Recommended.

--IMM

it is not uncommon in corporate america to see the absolutely incompetent promoted or given jobs they can not do and their bosses are so embarrassed by their mistake they normally try to ignore it until the person gets promoted or leaves.

It is a very sore subject for me...

The Peter Principle.

there's Murphy's Law. :evilgrin:

:popcorn:

The Cover Your Ass fixation. Everybody in this administration passes the buck to subordinates. It's supposed to work the other way around- and it does in most places. Blaming a subordinate betrays something worse than momentary bad judgement- it shows incompetence and low character.

But it's SOP in the corporate culture.

with marks not quite as good as Quayle's."

-- Calvin Trillin.

... when I own the damn book. I really should buy more of his work.

of "Mr. Roger's Neighborhood" and * puts on a sweater everyday, hums a tune, starts a war, loses a city, runs the debt into the rafters, ...then hangs up his sweater at the end of the day..which is apparently 8:00pm and goes to bed. *holy hanna*

cronies disease infects US all

...and the Devil take the hindmost. Which is surely not going to be THEM, just some poor average Americans who happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time.

God Protect America because these idiots can't even protect their own butts!!!

NEVER.

:toast:

and all I can say is omg.

that are also incompetent. Hmm...

Naw.

Couldn't be that party hacks get important national health and security issues.

Naw. geez.:banghead: