Bangazi hearings today

[MediumTex]

So did anyone in in the CIA, NSA or other intelligence arms gets fired for giving bad intelligence to the president about Iraq?

If by "fired" you mean "was given the Presidential Medal of Freedom", then yeah.  Their asses were SO fired.

Edit: The original version of that first sentence had about six f-bombs.

OMG!  That's a good find.  Why does that not surprise me.  I don't know whether to laugh or cry.

I will say it again: What do we expect from these people?

I wonder how Bush's new library will spin the Iraq debacle.  Probably just more "Mission Accomplished!"

Similarly, I'm sure that Obama's future library will make much of the fact that he was a Nobel Peace Prize recipient.

[Pointedstick]

I will say it again: What do we expect from these people?

I wonder how Bush's new library will spin the Iraq debacle.  Probably just more "Mission Accomplished!"

Similarly, I'm sure that Obama's future library will make much of the fact that he was a Nobel Peace Prize recipient.

Ideas like this are where my most anarchistic sentiments come from. I mean, if all we can expect from our elected leaders is lying, cheating, stealing, incompetence, cronyism, blame-shifting, and consequences that range from squandering other people's money to getting a lot of innocent people killed for no reason, then what in hell's name do we need these people around for???

[moda0306]

I really don't know... but if the death toll is 4 and the worst people can come up with is "there were requests made for security that were ignored," I'm sorry but this is just not that high on the list of things worth holding people accountable for.

I find this incredibly sad.  Pathetic even.

This isn't war.  We had no troops on the ground involved in the "liberation" of Libya.  This was the protection detail for one of our embassies and our ambassador was killed.  We expect to lose troops in war, we don't expect to have our ambassadors murdered.  When an unexpected action results in a loss of live, we should be holding people accountable, regardless of whether you find it a trivial number or not.  I don't expect Hillary Clinton or Obama to be fired over this, because I don't think they were involved in the decisions that lead to the deaths, but I expect that whoever denied the repeated requests for additional security in light of evidence of increased terrorist activity should be fired and relegated to flipping burgers.  I expect that there should be a review of the policies that lead to this situation and steps taken to try and make sure it doesn't happen again, either by not having embassies in high risk areas (unlikely) or by making sure they have increased security.

That's what it means to hold people accountable, not a witch hunt or a political smear job.  It takes very little resources and doesn't need to be broadcast on CNN, FoxNews, NBC, MSNBC, ABC, and CSPAN.  We should always hold people accountable for their failures and people should always take accountability for their failures.  That doesn't necessarily mean that people need to be fired when they fail, but we seem to have gotten into the habit of sweeping failure under the run in Washington and hoping it will go away, banking on that notoriously short American attention span and memory.  That's not a recipe for success.

Now, maybe we don't have the quality of leadership to do any of this, but this is what SHOULD happen and there isn't a single good reason for why it can't.

RE,

I probably misworded this.  I'm not saying there shouldn't be any kind of clarity brought to this event and that people shouldn't be fired who are "most responsible" for decisions at the level of processing the requests for security.

I'm saying that i only have so much time and effort I can put into personally finding things to be in an uproar about... And if I'm going to go bonkers about Benghazi then I'm going to have to set too low of a threshold and I'll end up spending too much of my time studying things I don't enjoy from conservatives (when a dem is in power) with their own manipulative agenda, and writing my representative about things I know little about.

Further, I find it a bit sad that conservatives somehow think "war is different" and shouldn't be scrutinized to anywhere near the degree that anything else the government does is scrutinized.  If we are thrust into war against our will (1812, WWII in some ways) I'd agree.  When we are being asked to engage in a pre-emotive war, it's a bullshit excuse, and trying to put the incompetence around the lives of 4 ambassadors over incompetence resulting in thousands of soldiers and hundreds of thousands of citizens, along with the injury of tens of thousands and displacing of millions of Iraqis in a preemptive war of choice is a joke.  In your words, "pathetic, really."

[moda0306]

I will say it again: What do we expect from these people?

I wonder how Bush's new library will spin the Iraq debacle.  Probably just more "Mission Accomplished!"

Similarly, I'm sure that Obama's future library will make much of the fact that he was a Nobel Peace Prize recipient.

Ideas like this are where my most anarchistic sentiments come from. I mean, if all we can expect from our elected leaders is lying, cheating, stealing, incompetence, cronyism, blame-shifting, and consequences that range from squandering other people's money to getting a lot of innocent people killed for no reason, then what in hell's name do we need these people around for???

Aren't library's kind of obsolete now anyway ?

Yup, I've got some heartless libertarian bones in me somewhere.

[Benko]

if all we can expect from our elected leaders is lying, cheating, stealing, incompetence, cronyism, blame-shifting, and consequences that range from squandering other people's money to getting a lot of innocent people killed for no reason, then what in hell's name do we need these people around for???

Thank you.

[Pointedstick]

Aren't library's kind of obsolete now anyway ?

Yup, I've got some heartless libertarian bones in me somewhere.

One interesting thing I've noticed is that the parts of government that people seem to appreciate and approve of most frequently (schools, libraries, roads, police and fire departments) are all provisioned at the local or state level and any federal equivalents (FBI, ATF, Dept. of Ed.) appear to preform markedly worse and engage in more damaging boondoggles.

Maybe we could just get rid of the federal government. And in any event, I just really doubt that these services are things that a society is simply incapable of providing to people in a different manner from how government does it.

[moda0306]

Aren't library's kind of obsolete now anyway ?

Yup, I've got some heartless libertarian bones in me somewhere.

One interesting thing I've noticed is that the parts of government that people seem to appreciate and approve of most frequently (schools, libraries, roads, police and fire departments) are all provisioned at the local or state level and any federal equivalents (FBI, ATF, Dept. of Ed.) appear to preform markedly worse and engage in more damaging boondoggles.

Maybe we could just get rid of the federal government. And in any event, I just really doubt that these services are things that a society is simply incapable of providing to people in a different manner from how government does it.

PS,

It seems to me that it depends on how you measure what the federal government does.

If judged only from "where is the money going" level, a lot of it is going to what is essentially social insurance.  Most of which is quite popular (if you actually look at polls on SS/Medicare).

[Pointedstick]

PS,

It seems to me that it depends on how you measure what the federal government does.

If judged only from "where is the money going" level, a lot of it is going to what is essentially social insurance.  Most of which is quite popular (if you actually look at polls on SS/Medicare).

True. But insurance--even government social insurance--is really not all that costly in terms of staffing and resourcing. It doesn't take millions of employees to figure out how to take money from group A and give it to group B. Probably even easier than regular insurance in fact due to the power to tax. Insurance companies need to make a profit and be clever about hiding the fact that most insurance by definition is a bad deal for most buyers most of the time.

Government doesn't need to convince you of these things; it just says, "pay up or you're a criminal."

[Pointedstick]

My guess is that PS would like to take all of "these people" and "those people" out back to be shot.

Shot, no. Fired, and forced to survive in the private sector, yes! 

Otherwise, I'm in the MT camp.

[moda0306]

I will say it again: What do we expect from these people?

I wonder how Bush's new library will spin the Iraq debacle.  Probably just more "Mission Accomplished!"

Similarly, I'm sure that Obama's future library will make much of the fact that he was a Nobel Peace Prize recipient.

Ideas like this are where my most anarchistic sentiments come from. I mean, if all we can expect from our elected leaders is lying, cheating, stealing, incompetence, cronyism, blame-shifting, and consequences that range from squandering other people's money to getting a lot of innocent people killed for no reason, then what in hell's name do we need these people around for???

This is a good question... here's my take:

- Leadership sucks in the private sector as well.  It's just human nature.

- Governmentless societies are inherantly fragile, evidenced by the fact that 1) there really are none, 2) the closest ones resemble Somalia more-so than Galtopia (see what I did there?), and 3) Nobody's rushing to start a "free island" anywhere.

- What the government does is inheratly related to life or death, unlike the production of widgets, maintaining a military (which would likely be the LAST part of our federal government to go if we started "slashing pieces away") is inherantly a violent affair.  As is enforcing laws.  I realize YOU may be a quasi-anarchist, but most self-appointed libertarians are not.  They may want a smaller military or law enforcement mechanisms, but they don't want to abolish them.

- Government is actually good at some stuff.  Putting a man on the moon when they did, inventing the nuclear bomb, certain (non-occupational) tactical military responses, a safety net retirement program with VERY little overhead as a percentage of benefits paid, an attempt at trying to manage intellectual property (I wouldn't know how to handle this, but believe it's a very legitimate form of property... in fact much moreso than owning natural resources), some pretty awesome infrastructure projects (Panama Canal still boggles my f*cking mind).  Obviously, this stuff is essentially always a private/public partnership, but that's the nature of any beast and really the whole point... good government facilitates private sector productivity, safety, a minimum level of human dignity and need, economic certainty, etc.  It's only able to do so because of private production and private ideas, so I'm not even really giving "government" credit so much as saying it has a role no different than insurance has a role in our budget, even though it feels uncomfortable and at times unnecessary.

Government is coercive as a general principal, though.  I think if we look at "realizable freedom" (instead of looking at freedom in a vacuum) we'll notice that if the government actually engages the private sector in the correct ways, our freedoms expand, not contract.  The internet expands my freedom, the productivity-backing role of government, and even some safety nets, I'm convinced, have helped create the environment where the internet can reliably expand through the private sector.

Maybe this is an improper definition of "freedom," and I should be looking it as PURELY "lack of coercion from any other hman being," but then we have to realize that this is only one sliver of importance that at some point has to be wieghed against others... Back to my "free in the middle of the desert" analogy.

[Benko]

I think a difference is you would like "these people" to be replaced by "those people". 

No--you really don't have as good a feel for me as you think.

Actually I was just thinking that while I don't think one can get rid of all gov't, PS makes a good point and getting rid of only the federal gov't while keeping local ones (OK and whatever minimal paper pushers to make the social nets work) would solve much of the problems and is a very attractive thought i.e. I would vote for that. 

[rocketdog]

Just once I'd like to hear some government leader say, "My department screwed up.  I personally will conduct an indepth investigation.  If it turns out some people weren't doing their job, they'll be fired.  If a procedural  problem was the cause, it will be fixed ASAP.  The Buck Stops here."

Richard A. Clarke said something similar regarding 9/11:

On March 24, 2004, Clarke testified at the public 9/11 Commission hearings. At the outset of his testimony Clarke offered an apology to the families of 9/11 victims and an acknowledgment that the government had failed:

"I also welcome the hearings because it is finally a forum where I can apologize to the loved ones of the victims of 9/11...To the loved ones of the victims of 9/11, to them who are here in this room, to those who are watching on television, your government failed you. Those entrusted with protecting you failed you. And I failed you. We tried hard, but that doesn't matter because we failed. And for that failure, I would ask, once all the facts are out, for your understanding and for your forgiveness."

[rocketdog]

Yup, I've got some heartless libertarian bones in me somewhere.

Don't start that misconception.  Libertarians are already misunderstood enough as it is.  Libertarians are full of heart, certainly more so than the bulk of our current politicians.  There's even a free e-book you can download about how a Libertarian society would heal the world:

http://www.ruwart.com/Healing/

[Benko]

My guess is that PS would like to take all of "these people" and "those people" out back to be shot.

Shot, no. Fired, and forced to survive in the private sector, yes!

Otherwise, I'm in the MT camp.

during moments of frustration i sometimes think bringing back tar and feathers or public stockades and the throwing of rotten fruit would be a suitable response to "these people and those peoples" behavior... then force them to survive in the public sector...

How about the other way around:  if you cannot manage a 7-11 and earn a profit for e.g. 7 days, you cannot be elected to congress or the presidency.

[FarmerD]

Re Clarke:  But what did he say he was going to do to fix the problem?  There's probably 37 different agencies involved in counterterrorism, they never talk to each other, each uses noncompatible databases, report to 14 differnet department heads, and are staffed with a high percentage of incompetents. 

At least he apologized and I guess that's a start.

[FarmerD]

[
- Government is actually good at some stuff. 

Government does some worthwhile stuff to be sure but is never "good" at what it does. "Good" implies they are efficient and productive but they never are.  Spending years working in the federal government turned me into a rather hard core libertarian after seeing all the waste, incompetence, and fraud that was tolerated and even downright encouraged.  You could fire half the people in DoD, the State Dept,  etc, and it wouldn't affect national security in any way.  Government agencies exist to promote the aims of the agency rather than serving the good of the public. 

It's not that I'm an anarchist, I just want government to be small, thrifty and accountable. 

[moda0306]

FarmerD,

Maybe a better way of saying it is that when the government decides to do something that for size/scope reasons the private sector won't undertake on its own (Panama canal), it can, even if inefficiently, very effectively dig a big damn trench in a short amount of time that can facilitate economic activity for hundreds of years to come that IS much more efficient.

I'm not saying the private sector couldn't have done it better given the correct motivations(even though contractors were likely involved with it) so much as saying that there are certain important things that the smaller individual players within the private sector simply WON'T do because it's too risky/large an undertaking with nobody really guaranteed stable ownership of what they've accomplished.  The lack of these undertakings keeps our ecnomies smaller and less efficient (ie, having to ship goods all the way around South America). 

And certain (not healthcare, but more like SS) broad-based social safety nets can also be handled quite efficiently by government with little overhead.  I realize I'm sort of arguing that "coercion is efficient" and realize how bad that kind of sounds.  Coercion may be immoral (in some ways much more than others, I think we'd all admit (Holocaust vs Medicare))... But that's a different set of considerations from how efficient government is.  In fact, I think they're two sides of the same coin.  Usually, if government is efficient at doing something that the private sector is less efficient at (freeways, infrastructure, safety nets) it's because they can simply "get it done" without having to jump through the same hoops as private players.  It's the coercion that makes them efficient, in a sense.

This can sometimes result in phenominally productive undertakings (Panama Canal), as well as corruption (bs makework projects).

[MediumTex]

I will say it again: What do we expect from these people?

* [ Sigh of resignation ] *

I know, I know.

Cheetah gonna cheat.

Awesome.

[MediumTex]

I suspect MT views "These People" as a dopey sitcom on NBC and "Those People" as a dopey sitcom on Fox, and though he occasionally indulges in a guilty pleasure and watches both, he would rather be playing with his kids or cleaning carpets, and advocates for all of us to watch less TV.

I would say that they are more like the cast from the latest season of Survivor, except they occasionally jump out of the TV set and take some of your stuff when they are running low on supplies.

[MediumTex]

* [ Sigh of resignation ] *

I know, I know.

Cheetah gonna cheat.

Awesome.

  "The IRS softball team has canceled their game Friday with Sen. John Cornyn’s staff, amid the still-evolving scandal of targeting conservative organizations.

The game has not been rescheduled.

By the way, the IRS’s team name? “The Cheetahs.”?

Let me guess the name of Cornyn's staff's team: The Liahs.

[Pointedstick]

And their team's legal representation is provided by the respected firm of Dewey, Cheatum & Howe.