My, it did become a busy news day yesterday afternoon, didn’t it? I have a few drive-by observations on the stories that emerged.
Kennedy to enter re-hab
You’d think the news outlets would have boilerplate ready for this wouldn’t you? In all seriousness my heart goes out to Patrick Kennedy—the poor guy never had a chance. He was genetically pre-programmed for substance abuse and in a social milieu in which that’s considered normal. I think that the piling-on by all parties is unseemly.
And a Congressman getting special treatment? Blow me down! How could such a thing happen! There will always be plenty of human beings ready to curry favor with the powerful. The organic solution is to reduce the power and influence of Congress. I don’t see that happening any time soon (especially if Congress has anything to say about it and they do, they do). So get used to it.
The citizens of his district in Rhode Island knew what they were getting into when they elected him to Congress and they’re the only people Mr. Kennedy has to please to hold onto his office. Nothing to see here. Move on.
Porter Goss resigns as head of CIA
In From the Cold has excellent reporting, insights, and speculation on the story.
In my view the morale at the CIA has been poor for quite a while now, possibly pre-dating 9/11. I don’t believe that the performance, corruption, demeanor, and turnover at the top reflect an institution at the top of its game. I wonder if they haven’t succumbed to the characteristic disease of all bureaucracies: abandoning the mission. For more years than I care to mention I’ve seen the inner workings of any number of corporate, government, and institutional bureaucracies firsthand and in my view they share a common quality. The prosperity of the company, the commonweal, and the mission statement, respectively, have diminished in importance in favor of promulgating and following rules. There is no initiative. I don’t know whether this is due to poor leadership or the nature of the beast but it’s certainly true. I think Thorstein Veblen has made similar observations.
Secret intelligence services are at best an uneasy marriage to free societies. I think the circumstances of a free society very nearly preclude a secret intelligence service being effective. There’s neither the means, motive, nor the required mental state.
I doubt that the continued uproar will be good for the CIA or the country.
And I don’t care why Goss resigned.
Can we get McKinney into rehab? Do they have rehab for being stupid?
C Northcote Parkinson called it “Injelititis”. Very hard for an organisation to recover from.
The science fiction writer Christopher Anvil suggested tests to ensure that organisation members take initiative toward achieving their assigned goals. Results, not excuses. Anvil agreed to put many of his stories on the internet where you can read them for free, and that story is one of them. I’m pretty sure you’ll like it.
http://www.webscription.net/10.1125/Baen/0743436008/0743436008.htm
His work has recently been republished and the hope is that enough people who read it for free will buy it, that sales go up beyond what they’d be otherwise. Anvil’s characters tend to be simple men with simple motivations, and the stories are great.