Bureaucracy: Teh Awesome

Chris Hayes makes the case:

But a funny thing has happened over the past six years. At a time when the press failed to check a reactionary Administration, when the opposition party all too often chose timidity, it was the lowly and anonymous bureaucrats, clad in rumpled suits, ID badges dangling from their necks, who, in their own quiet, behind-the-scenes way, took to the ramparts to defend the integrity of the American system of government.

It was the midlevel intelligence professionals in the CIA whose expertise led them to argue that Iraq had no means of acquiring nuclear material; it was the planners and country experts at the State Department who prepared a 1,200-page document about postwar Iraq outlining in depressing detail the many challenges and brutalizing exigencies our occupying forces now face. It was professional scientists in the bowels of the Environmental Protection Agency who pushed their reports warning of the effects of climate change, only to have them censored and purged. It was concerned and conscientious spooks and cryptographers at the National Security Agency who contacted reporters to raise alarms about the warrantless wiretapping of Americans. It was a midlevel career bureaucrat at the Department of Education named Jon Oberg who spent his own time--nights and weekends--studying the student loan program and discovered that taxpayers were being ripped off by private lenders to the tune of hundreds of millions of dollars. Despite warnings from his (appointed) superiors, he published his results in an internal memo sent to the entire department. He retired shortly thereafter.

Needless to say, this is actually why bureaucracies are so damn bureaucratic. Important public functions should be conducted by the book, according to the rules. The alternative is less a snazzy flood of innovation than, well, the Bush administration.

Comments

This post primarily shows the weakness of bureaucrats - despite some valiant efforts Iraq was still invaded and is still a smoking ruin, Kyoto still remains unsigned, the loan money was still stolen...Yep: despite the bureaucracy, elections still have consequences. This kind of stuff can at best flag disasters, not stop them

Posted by JohnTh | June 22, 2007 9:20 AM

Damn straight. Politicians love to run against bureaucracy, but the main share of the government's work isn't done by politicians; it's done by bureaucrats, who, under the best circumstances, take their jobs and their rules seriously.

(Child of two career federal bureaucrats here.)

Posted by JSE | June 22, 2007 10:14 AM

The Republican Congress of 1998 laid the foundation for Bush/Cheney's deceit by passing a law with the Orwellian name "Intelligence Community Whistleblower's Protection Act".

Orwellian because the Act actually did the reverse: it says a whistleblower who wishes to report waste, fraud or abuse to the Congressional Intelligence oversight committees must FIRST tell officers of the Executive Branch that he is going to snitch on them. 30 Days in advance.

Which basically ensures that the Whistleblower will be out of a job --and his family plunged into deep poverty -- if he tries to do the right thing. That's why most of the whistleblowing has been done by fired employees or by those who have retired. That's why we have heard only part of the story and that very late in the day.

Not how The right of a US citizen to petition his own Congressman or Senator for redress of grievances was Scrapped, along with much of the rest of the Bill of Rights.

Of course, many of the members of HPSCI have big intelligence contracts in their district -- look at Jane Harman circa 2001-2003, for example. If they blow off a whistleblower, the whistleblower can NOT hold them accountable in the next election --because he is not in their district. May, in fact, live on the other side of the country.

That law was proposed and pushed through by ..ta da -- Porter Goss. Chairman of the HPSCI which nodded its head when Bush said Sept 11 occurred because "they hate our freedom ".

The warm feeling that his 1998 Act gave Porter Goss when he became Director of the CIA is left for the reader to imagine.

Several of the illustrious members of HPSCI under Porter Goss's tenure are now in prison. Duke Cunningham, for example. And Porter Goss resigned abruptly as Director of the CIA when investigators started sniffing around one of his aides.

The Republicans don't care, of course. When the next disaster strikes this country because of their corruption and incompetence, they will do the same thing they did on Sept 11: Go on TV, stand in front of the American Flag, and sing
"God Bless America".

Posted by Don Williams | June 22, 2007 11:03 AM

The Republican Congress of 1998 laid the foundation for Bush/Cheney's deceit

That keeps getting funnier and FUNNIER ...

Posted by Jeffrey Davis | June 22, 2007 12:24 PM

Bureaucracies are only as good as the systems they support. True, there are a lot of good bureaucracies that have been built up over the years, but many of them may become bad as conditions changes, and they'll need overhaul. Then there are the ones that are already bad. Bureaucratic inertia is an undemocratic check on progressive change. Just like the filibuster. And, as with the filibuster, it looks a lot more attractive when it's the Bush administration on the receiving end.

Posted by Greg | June 23, 2007 12:20 PM