Saturday, February 25, 2006
Just wondering
I was just wondering how many wrong calls is too many. Everybody is entitled to pick the wrong horse or bet on the wrong team once in awhile, but to almost never get ir right, well, that will usually put a pall on your credibility and distance you from the head of the class big time.
Take the government for example (please!), can anyone remember the last time it got anything right? No two men in the administration have the president's ear more than Vice President Dick Cheney and Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld and no two men have failed to get it right more often. From the outset of the invasion of Iraq they have either erred in judgement or deliberately ignored the evidence at almost every turn of events. In the president's case, undying loyalty to cabinet members of his choosing regardless of their track record of reliability, can be and has turned out to be, a liability and a disservice to the nation. He couldn't even bring himself to lower the boom on Homeland Security chief, Chertof, who as the man in charge of dealing with the hurricane Katrina disaster, was the catalyst for failure all the way down the line. There again the president's 'loyalty' translated into stubborness, resulting in a 'hands off my boy' conclusion. I don't know who will be given a pass on the decision to
turn port management over to the Arabs. Perhaps this time the president will have to give himself a pass. The jury is still out on that one.
How many more bad calls will be enough? We may well have met the quota.
George Morin
Auburn
Take the government for example (please!), can anyone remember the last time it got anything right? No two men in the administration have the president's ear more than Vice President Dick Cheney and Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld and no two men have failed to get it right more often. From the outset of the invasion of Iraq they have either erred in judgement or deliberately ignored the evidence at almost every turn of events. In the president's case, undying loyalty to cabinet members of his choosing regardless of their track record of reliability, can be and has turned out to be, a liability and a disservice to the nation. He couldn't even bring himself to lower the boom on Homeland Security chief, Chertof, who as the man in charge of dealing with the hurricane Katrina disaster, was the catalyst for failure all the way down the line. There again the president's 'loyalty' translated into stubborness, resulting in a 'hands off my boy' conclusion. I don't know who will be given a pass on the decision to
turn port management over to the Arabs. Perhaps this time the president will have to give himself a pass. The jury is still out on that one.
How many more bad calls will be enough? We may well have met the quota.
George Morin
Auburn
