We’re 6 1/2 years into the Bush administration, and I have to confess I’m still floored by stuff like this:
Former surgeon general Richard H. Carmona yesterday accused the Bush administration of muzzling him on sensitive public health issues, becoming the most prominent voice among several current and former federal science officials who have complained of political interference.
Carmona, a Bush nominee who served from 2002 to 2006, told the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform that political appointees in the administration routinely scrubbed his speeches for politically sensitive content and blocked him from speaking out on public health matters such as stem cell research, abstinence-only sex education and the emergency contraceptive Plan B.
The only way you get a functioning government is by electing Democrats. I actually wish I didn’t have to say that, because sometimes Republicans win elections. But the GOP did absolutely nothing to rein in this kind of abuse while it was in power (essentially 2001-2006), so I think it can be assumed that this is how they believe government ought to be run — as a pure partisan hackfest, with no value to the public at large. Hey, those bureaucrats just get in the way, anyway. I’m not hearing all that much from the current crop of GOP presidential candidates to distance themselves from the administration’s mismanagement; mostly it’s partisan rationalization and ideological preening. I welcome any counterexamples from the GOP field of candidates — I actually would find it a relief.
We should be having a vigorous debate about what government ought or ought not be doing. That’s democracy. But really, this next election is about whether government can do anything at all.
If you think government should be solely a set of partisan weapons for the use of the incumbent party, vote GOP.
On the other hand, if you think that NASA should do real science; that the Surgeon General should provide real health information; that the Food and Drug Administration should ensure safety of food and drugs; if you think the Environmental Protection Agency should protect the environment; that the Department of Justice should pursue justice; etc. … you simply have no choice but to vote for the Democrats.
I wish there were trustworthy Republicans in the field — not people I’d like, but fundamentally honest. But I don’t see it. Mike Huckabee says things aren’t so bad. Mitt Romney is obliterating a technocratic image as fast as he can. McCain said things were just dandy in Iraq. A Giuliani administration holds the promise of 1,461 days of Bernie Kerik-ism.
The very raison-d’etre of government itself is at stake. And the current model needs to be refuted so thoroughly that the GOP needs to repudiate its behavior and re-invent itself as a reliable steward of government. That may take several election cycles: Remember that the Republicans used the ghost of the Jimmy Carter era against the Democrats for at least two more elections after he was out of office. I would imagine that the political repercussions from the Bush years may well last longer than that, because the real-world repercussions will last longer that those of the Carter administration.
I don’t know a snappy way to put it, since Reaganite conservatives have so dominated the discussion for 27 years that many people react negatively to the word “government” at all. But I hope and believe that people do sense how badly things are screwed up, that some degree of basic trust in government needs to be restored. We’ll see if that idea has any traction at all in 2008.
It’s like the Supreme Court where we now have Federalist Society appointees on the court for life. The Bush Administration is also filling the Civil Service with hackbots. The destruction of the Civil Rights division of the Justice Department is obvious now. No doubt, that’s not where it ends.
…that Carmona stayed in the malAdministration for as long as he did, while knowing what was going on.
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There have been reports for years that the Bushies were scrubbing environmental reports from the EPA and NASA for political purposes, and that the people who were doing the scrubbing (a)were largely kids in their 20s and (b) weren’t even scientists, they were merely Young Republicans.
Those darn Republicans in the General Court, messing everything up!
In fact, the pressure is on in Massachusetts to do well — in fact to do better than that, to excel. Defeating Republicans here is like shooting fish in a barrel. We cannot advance the Democratic cause very far by doing that. Instead, our job in the Bay State is do so well that people in other states say, “I want that too.”
I thought it was to get as much as we can, not get indicted, and suck off of the Commonwealth’s teat for the rest of our lives. I guess you don’t understand everything when you try to learn by others’ examples.
Will, if you have something substantive to say, that’s certainly welcome. But AM-radio crap like this is just boring as hell.
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If you have a provocative, factually-supported, well thought-out argument you want to bring to bear, let’s see it. Otherwise go away.
While I really like the attempt, Charley, of trying to curb an overindulgence in satire and gotcha comments (I mean this sincerely), I did read Will’s comment as agreeing with me by saying that the Patrick Administration needs to set the bar far higher than the Bush Administration does. A quick check of his previous comments indicates that he has a high level of concern about corruption. He finds it quite repugnant and he has a long memory.
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The problem with satire, as became evident for me on the abstinence-not-only thread, is that it can be extremely vague. It assumes shared concerns, values, and evaulations. Perhaps, that’s the difficulty with Will’s comments. They’re satiric but it is difficult to figure out their target without further research into their author.
You delude yourself if you think that the negative reactions to the pathetic Carter administration have withered away. He is probably the worst president in history and certainly will not be forgotten in our times. It remains to be seen if Bush’s non-legacy will last as long as that flaming hypocrite’s.
Also, except for nice sounding words, you give us no reason to have faith in government, except that you are telling us so. That will not fly with today’s public. They are much wiser to the frailties of government (hacks, waste, promises, etc.) than they were when I was a young man. Thank God for the Internet and alternative news sources! Yes, even this left-wing blog is a good source of alternate opinion, and you and your colleagues do good work, even if I may not agree too often.
As a third party member I would assert that neither of the two major political parties is particularly competent. I could easily state that our country has been in the hands of one party or the other for a long time and regardless of the countless billions, or trillions, of dollars pumped into the political machine we still have as many problems as before.
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I agree, and will be the first to admit, that Bush has been a major embarrassment. But just the other day I read a story (I believe in the Boston Globe) about our Senior Senator Ted Kennedy forcing the production of an almost half billion dollar jet engine program for the F-35 fighter jet. The military claimed that these secondary engines were not needed and two independent committees voted the same, but still Ted Kennedy forced the production in order to supply revenues to a company in his district. It is admirable that he is finding ways to direct resources to his district (my home state) but shouldn’t it be done in a more responsible manner than to produce jet engines that will never be used.
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A half billion dollars goes a long way to filling in a national debt brought about, in large part, by Republicans. Although, even when the economy was running strong (with surpluses no less) under Clinton the government never seemed able to find a way to fill in any of the debt. That was a missed opportunity on Bill Clinton’s behalf.
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A half billion dollars also goes a long way to putting books in our public school children’s hands. It goes a long way to building a fence along the southern border as was promised and voted for by both major parties. It goes a long way to giving states the financial support they were promised for homeland security. My point is that a half billion dollars has already been promised in a thousand other ways for some very good things, and yet Kennedy finds a way to buy votes at the GE plant using public funds. Neither the Republicans nor the Democrats have much to crow about these days and my expectation is that there is going to be a powerful surge in third party candidates and campaigns.
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As for your statement that “the only way to get a functioning government is to vote for Democrats” – it will be well tested over the next 3.5 years here in Massachusetts. With a Democratic supermajority in the legislature and the Governor’s office there will be no blaming the Republicans for anything going forward. Let’s see what Deval can do about the gang crime and murders in Boston. Let’s see what he does with property tax relief as he promised in his campaign. Let’s see how many new companies relocate to Massachusetts based on his snappy radio ads. Let’s watch to see if the lagging real estate prices rebound and whether the exodus of people to New Hampshire and South Carolina stops. I hope so, but I wouldn’t want to bet Friday’s paycheck on it.
especially to our friends here who are not dyed-in-the-wool Democrats like me:
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I think Teddy’s wrong for pushing for defense pork, as are all the other congressfolk that do that, or try — that is to say, all of them. I know why they do it, and it’s a crushing waste, for all the reasons you say.
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That being said, that’s just old-school pork barrel. Pork is bad, but we’ve survived pork barrel politics for a long time now. Ted Stevens and Robert Byrd were around before Bush, they may well be around after him — and if it’s not them, it’ll be someone else larding up his own state. Lame, but nothing new.
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As far as competence, let’s just take Mitt Romney’s administration in MA: I didn’t like him, didn’t like his priorities, didn’t like the tilt of his policies. But government basically stumbled along in a basically functional way; and Romney’s BS’ing was of the standard lame-politician sort. I didn’t like him, but that’s because I thought he was leading us down the road to mediocrity, not necessarily disaster.
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And that’s how any number of state governments function, GOP- or Dem-led. They have to get the basic work of government done, or they get their asses kicked.
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What I’m talking about is a totally different level of magnitude of incompetence and bad faith than anything that I’ve ever seen or heard of, at any level of government in the US. Handed a blank check by the GOP majority (and our “post 9/11 mindset”), they’ve just abused the crap out of their power, and torn government itself apart.
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I don’t mean this to sound like an endorsement, but a return to Romney-esque mediocrity on the national level would indeed be a great relief.
…what is
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I don’t mean this to sound like an endorsement, but a return to Romney-esque mediocrity on the national level would indeed be a great relief.
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supposed to mean? Romney wasn’t much in control of the state during his entire term of office.
I think Teddy’s wrong for pushing for defense pork…
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…it isn’t so much that Teddy (Kennedy) is pushing for defense pork (although he is). It is because the DepDef has discovered how to manipulate the electorate by distributing their contracts around virtually every congressional district in the USofA. Eisenhower’s “military-industrial(-congressional) complex” writ large. It was masterful how they did it. And now, it’s virtually impossible to stop it. In other words, you’re screwed.
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My father, before he retired, worked as an engineering manager in GE’s LJED (large jet engine department) at Evendale OH (something of a twin to the SJED–small jet engine department in Lynn). In the 1960s, he would joke about military contracting. One year the military would issue a contract that required an engine subcontract to the LJED. The next year, the military would issue a contract that required an engine subcontract to SJED. The next year, the military would issue a contract that required an engine subcontract to–Pratt&Whitney. Who? A subsidiary (I don’t know if it goes by the same name) of United Technologies, of Connecticut. Same technology, same product, three different states. And that is how the game is played.
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As for the other Teddy, that is Teddy Stevens, it is beyond me why the federal taxpayer should be funding a bridge to nowhere when the state of Alaska is in surplus, but I’ll let it ride. Well, not really. I’m not exactly sure how many of you have driven on I84-86 in western Connecticut and observed the interchange to nowhere, somewhere around New Britain. I first observed it in the early 1970s when I was driving from Ohio to Boston, and was amazed at how high it was. I later learned that it led to–nowhere.
That’s a good thing one can say about one of the Republican Presidential candidates. Sadly, the fact that one even has to applaud such a position offers a pretty devastating indictment of the Republican administration overall.
Amen. This state ran like a fine clock when the brothers Bulger ran it.
actually, yes. That’s my point.
Billy was a rock against the Yankee attempts to take the state over. Billy knew how to reward his friends and take care of the Southie people. He got lots of jobs for his friends. You can’t ask more of a politician than that.
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Whitey shut down Southie from a Yuppie takeover. Now that he’s out, the neighborhoods are disolving.
This state ran like a fine clock when the brothers Bulger ran it.
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…the trains began to run on time when Mussolini ran Italy.
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I suppose that’s your point. Crooks of a feather flock together?
Is there an Italian equivalent to Goodwin’s law?
…it would be whether there was an Irish equivilent. The brothers Bulger were obviously of Irish descent.
at any other time this would be a big deal (and it still may be). It is amazing when something as crazy as this falls so low on the list of crimes and misdemeanors .