In a Washington Post column, George Will expanded on a point he made Sunday on ABC: The Bush administration, as portrayed by Bob Woodward’s new book, seems about like other administrations in its disorder and rivalries: “Some will regard ‘State of Denial’ as Katrina between hard covers, a snapshot of dysfunctional government,” Will wrote. “But it is largely just a glimpse of government, disheartening as that fact may be to those who regard government as a glistening scalpel for administering social transformation.” Which is why Will and so many others think that when it comes to government, less is more.
Posted by Rhonda Holman
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38 Comments
George Will has proven himself to be more concerned about George Will than the American people. I don’t take anything he has to say seriously. If he truly believes that less government is more – then why does he worship George W. Bush? And let’s not talk about the national debt.
Democracy is an inherently rotten, vile dysfunctional for of government, regardless of the party in power. All multiracial democracies will soon come to an end and I say, good riddance!
Viva la Revolucion Blanco!!
Ian,I would be interested in hearing your alternative?
Hmmm, me too.
P.S. About Will’s bullshit: there is nothing that compels government to be MORE dysfunctional than the private sector. It’s a different paradigm, with its own quirks, but invariably government is screwed up because the people we elect insist on screwing it up.
Ahem, GEORGE Will (though I should clarify, though I disagree with Will often enough!).
I happen to believe George Will is one of the more intelligent columnists in this country. While I disagree with him on many points, on this one he is mostly dead on. Government, by its very nature, is an incompetent morase of feudal misfits that somehow makes itself work in a fashion.
The problem with this one is it has no idea how to make itself work for the people, so on that point he is wrong.
Just like the Robin Williams thing: change the diapers and do it now.
He’s exactly right, and it doesn’t matter much which party is elected. Elected officials are just the visible government, the tip of the iceberg; the “real” government, in many ways, is vast army of unelected bureaucrats, who stay and administer their fiefdoms no matter which party is in power. It’s the nature of large, unwieldy bureaucracies, and government certainly is that.
The only cure, frankly, is significantly smaller, less intrusive government. But neither party has proven itself capable of doing that.
And BTW – Will hardly “worships” at Bush’s feet; he’s been quite critical of this administration at times.
It doesnt matter which party is elected?
We are just stuck with corruption, lies and the dismantling of the constitution?
Nothing we can do about it?
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=364×2330821
hee hee hee. I know the righties wont click, but anyone who HASNT had their daily dose of soma, er, I mean kookaide, will LOVE that link.
After the Katrina fiasco it was widely noted that FEMA used to be a viable functioning entity staffed by “dull as dirt” professionals. It was NOT dysfunctional.
However, under the current administration it was turned into a dumping ground for political hacks – thus MAKING it dysfunctional.
This pattern has repeated itself throughout the government under our current one-party rule.
Watching the aster situation has reminded me of an idea I have kicked around for some time. There is no real legal reaosn that the Speaker of the House be picked by the Majority Party caucus. Technically he is elected by a majority of the entire House. What would happen if a moderate group within the majority aprty put up their own candidate rather than going alone with the caucus? Then get the minority aprty to vote for that candidate? Might that be a way to open up that body (legislature, Congress, etc) to compromise and working across party lines?
More on the Phony “war on terror”
BRITAIN: The mysterious case of the disappearing ‘terror’ plots
Norm Dixon | October 4 2006
Readers of Britain’s newspapers are regularly accosted with blood-curdling banner headlines screaming of the “thwarting” of potentially catastrophic “terror plots”, of “Islamic fanatics” being apprehended in daring midnight raids. “Chilling” details, “revealed” by anonymous police and government “sources”, underline why “we” must accept a “trade-off” between civil liberties and “security”, the editorials assure an apprehensive populace. Months or even years later,however, news that many of the “plots” never actually existed is buried behind the latest sex scandal or exploitative “expose” — if reported at all.
On August 10, deputy commissioner of London’s Metropolitan Police Paul Stephenson declared that a plan to “cause untold death and destruction” and “mass murder on an unimaginable scale” had been foiled with the arrest of 24 people. “We believe that the terrorists’ aim was to smuggle explosives onto planes in hand luggage to detonate them in flight”, Stephenson alleged. Britain’s and the world’s mass media trumpeted the claims.
However, within days the dramatic case against the detainees as told to the media by anonymous US and British government and police “sources” began to unravel. The claim that an attack was “imminent” was false. No reservations had been made or airline ticketspurchased by the 10 charged with serious terrorism offences; several did not even have passports. Apparently, just one had used the internet to check flight schedules recently. There were no bombs.
The assertion that the detainees intended to destroy 10-12 aircraft was “speculative and exaggerated”, a British official admitted to the August 28 New York Times. Claims of a convoluted “Pakistani connection” between the plotters and al Qaeda have disappeared. The possibility of successfully concocting “liquid bombs” from household products in a plan’es toilet mid-air has been dismissed by chemical experts.
MisrepresentationGareth Pierce, defence lawyer for the 17-year-old in the case accused of possessing items “useful to a person preparing acts of terrorism”, told the August 31 Chicago Tribune how police hadmisrepresented what they had found at the boy’s mother’s home and twisted it to fit their grandiose claims. According to police, “suicide notes”, a map of Afghanistan and a bomb “manual” had been found.
What was actually discovered, Pierce told the Tribune, were wills written by people who had fought in Bosnia more than 10 years earlier. The accused was just six when much of this material was placed in the box! “They’re not suicide notes at all. They’re really simple wills. To call these suicide notes was absolutely disgraceful”, Pierce said.
The wills were found in a box that once belonged to the boy’s father — who has since divorced and moved out — when he ran a now-defunct charity that helped displaced Bosnian Muslims. The box also contained a crude map drawn by the boy’s younger brother when he was a child. There was also a book ofdrawings of electrical circuits, which even if it was of some use in building a bomb, it would be useless for the device that police allege the group was trying to construct.
Associated Press on September 4 reported that prosecutors told a London court that the detainees will not face trial until March 2008. They will remain in prison and the key details of the prosecution’s case will be kept secret until then.
Lies and fabricationWill the British government and mass media’s accusations stand up in court? Not if the record of British police, government and media lying, exaggeration and fabrication in recent “terror” cases is anything to go by.
As Craig Murray, former British ambassador to Uzbekistan, pointed out in an August 14 article on his website(), “Of the over 1000 British Muslims arrested under anti-terrorist legislation, only 12% are ever charged with anything. That is simply harassment of Muslims on an appalling scale. Of those charged, 80% are acquitted. Most of the very few — just over 2% of arrests — who are convicted, are not convicted of anything to do with terrorism, but of some minor offence the police happened upon while trawling through the wreck of the lives they had shattered.”
At 4am on June 2, around 250 police, some wearing chemical suits, stormed a house in Forest Gate, east London. Police claimed that a chemical bomb was in the house. Awoken by the sound of doors being broken down, the two families living there thought they were being attacked by robbers. Mohammed Abdul Kahar was shot in the chest by police, who failed to identify themselves or give a warning, narrowly missing his heart.
Rupert Murdoch’s seedy Sun newspaper on June 3 ramped up the anti-Muslim panic, without a shred of evidence: “A CHEMICAL bomb held by Islamic terrorists is primed to go off at any time, police feared last night. The device is believed to have been designed to release a toxic cloud in a crowded space — killing hundreds. And senior officers are convinced it has been prepared for an ‘imminent’ attack in the UK … Last night a frantic hunt was on to find the bomb before it could be activated by fanatics.
One senior security source said: ‘We are absolutely certain this device exists and could be used either by a suicide bomber or in a remote-controlled explosion.’”
Not to be outdone, Murdoch’s Times on June 3 reported the finding of a “poison suicide vest of death”. No chemical bombs or suicide vests everexisted. Kahar and his brother were detained for eight days without charge under the Terrorism Act (2000) before being released. “The only crime I have committed is being Asian and having a long beard”, Kahar told the BBC on June 13. “They haven’t had the decency to apologise.”
‘Red mercury’In one of more bizarre examples of how the British government, police and the media work hand in glove to manufacture terror scares was provided when the notorious “fake sheikh” Mazher Mahmood, a journalist for Murdoch’s tacky News of the World who regularly dresses up in Arab robes to trick celebrities and others into compromising themselves, and an undercover police agent in 2004 attempted to entrap three people in a “virtual” terror plot.
Mahmood offered to sell them an imaginary nuclear substance, “red mercury”, telling them itcould be used to make a radioactive “dirty bomb”. However, the three seemed to be more interested in the claim that red mercury could also wash marked money. The undercover cop then offered to buy the fake substance from them for $300,000 a kilo.
With the approval of the Labour government’s attorney-general, the three dupes were arrested by the Met’s anti-terrorist squad on September 24, 2004. They were charged with attempting to secure funding or property for terrorism and having “a highly dangerous mercury-based substance” for use in terrorism. The following day, the News of the World’s front page screamed, “Anti-terrorist cops move in after News of the World uncovers bid to buy radioactive material”. Red mercury, the News of the World lied to its unfortunate readers, is“a deadly substance developed by cold war Russian scientists for making briefcase nuclear bombs”.
The three remained in jail until their acquittal almost two years later. During the trial, which cost more than £1 million, the government prosecutor declared that “the Crown’s position is that whether red mercury does or does not exist is irrelevant” and urged the jury not to get “hung up” on that point. Luckily, the jury did not agree.
Own goal in ManchesterBritain’s government-police-press team scored an own goal in April 2004, when 400 Greater Manchester police rounded up 10 Iraqi Kurds. Leading the lynch mob was the Sun, which ran an invented story that began: “A SUICIDE bomb plot to kill thousands of soccer fans at Saturday’s Manchester United-Liverpool match was dramatically foiled yesterday. Armed cops seized ten terror suspects in dawn raids. Intelligence chiefs believe al-Qaeda fanatics planned to blow themselves up amid67,000 unsuspecting supporters. A source said: ‘The target was Old Trafford.’ The Islamic fanatics planned to sit all around the ground to cause maximum carnage. They had already bought the tickets for various positions in the stadium, cops revealed last night.”
The entire fantastic story, and the cops’ case against the Kurds, was improvised from leaked police information about the “discovery” of a couple of old ticket stubs from a Manchester United soccer match in a suspect’s flat. He was indeed guilty of being a fanatic — a fanatical supporter of Manchester United who had kept the stubs as a souvenir of the only game he and a friend had attended! They were bought from a scalper, which explained why the tickets were for different parts of the ground. The 10 people were released without charge.
Ricin refluxPerhaps themost cynically exploited of the British government’s series of fabricated “terror scares” was the police announcement in January 2003 that a “terrorist cell’s” plans to use ricin poison in an attack had been foiled.
On January 7, British government ministers announced that “traces of ricin” had been found in a flat raided by police. Prime Minister Tony Blair seized on the “plot” to bolster the propaganda campaign to go to war against Saddam Hussein’s Iraq. Blair made the ludicrous claim that the discovery of ricin, which can only kill if directly injected into a person’s bloodstream, proved that “this danger [of weapons of mass destruction] is present and real and with us now. Its potential is huge.”
Then US Secretary of State Colin Powell also referred to the alleged “cell” during his speech to the UN Security Council on February 5, 2003,arguing for war against Iraq if Hussein did not abandon his non-existent WMD. Powell claimed it was proof of a “sinister nexus between Iraq and the al Qaeda terrorist network”.
The truth was that there was no al Qaeda cell and no ricin. On the same day that the government proclaimed the discovery of “traces of ricin” in the flat, tests by the government’s own research facility at Porton Down had found there was no ricin. That finding was kept secret by the government for more than two years.
In April 2005, four people were acquitted on charges of conspiracy to commit terrorism, while charges against four others were dropped. One person, Kamel Bourgass, was convicted on a lesser charge of “conspiracy to cause a public nuisance by the use of poisons and/or explosives”, based on his possession of “recipes” to make ricin and evidence ofattempts to do so.
However, the April 20, 2005, Independent reported that “Professor Alistair Hay, one of Britain’s foremost authorities on toxins, said Bourgass’s attempts to construct toxic weapons from his small supplies of ingredients and ramshackle ‘laboratory’ were ‘incredibly amateurish and unlikely to succeed’.”
Ben, a salutary idea which, I’m afraid, will never see the light of day in my lifetime. There are too many entrenched “loyalists”, be they GOP or Dem, who won’t buck the system. With all that said, gee, do I hope I’m wrong!
New York Times
“Israeli Bomblets Plague Lebanon”
“BEIRUT, Lebanon, Sept. 29 — Since the war between Israel and Hezbollah ended in August, nearly three people have been wounded or killed each day by cluster bombs Israel dropped in the waning days of the war, and officials now say it will take more than a year to clear the region of them.
VideoCluster BombsGraphicDangerous Remnants United Nations officials estimate that southern Lebanon is littered with one million unexploded bomblets, far outnumbering the 650,000 people living in the region. They are stuck in the branches of olive trees and the broad leaves of banana trees. They are on rooftops, mixed in with rubble and littered across fields, farms, driveways, roads and outside schools.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/10/06/world/middleeast/06cluster.html?th&emc=th
Very true Ed. And we should not forget the emergency shipment of these munitions Bush ordered in the final days of the bombardment.
I hope every Lebanese civilian sees the label “Made in USA” on these. Interesting that Bush and Olmert both claim to support the Saniora government but refuse to help remove the booby traps we littered the countryside with.
Vaughn – one place where I would really like to see it is in Kansas where we effectively have a three-party system. What would happen if the moderate Republicans put up candidates for leadership positions in Topeka? Could they forge an alliance with Dems to elect leaders? They do often work together on legislation.
George Will tries to cover up Bush’s negligent homocide on 9-11 by saying that “gov’t always f*cks up.”
He’s smart. It absolves his f*ck up W while at the same time reiterating the right-wing mantra that gov’t doesn’t solve problems, it IS the problem.
Now, if we just had some . . . what’s the word I’m looking for . . . ah, yes . . . EVIDENCE.
Social security–big gov’t program that dropped poverty among the elderly from 40 percent to under 10 percent
Western Europe and Canada–massive “socialized” medicine that costs less and works betterThe US is 37th in health care.
Also, Will’s position is wholly contradictory with his stance on Iraq. If gov’t always “f*cks up,” then why did our gov’t invade Iraq?
GMC writes “the ‘real’ government, in many ways, is vast army of unelected bureaucrats, who stay and administer their fiefdoms”
Well, hell, he ought to know since he IS ONE OF THOSE BUREAUCRATS working on the taxpayer’s dime.
Don’t try to make it better as part of government or anything, GMC, just whine and moan about how bad “government” is.
Then you can at once benefit from the very system that you claim “victimizes” you.
How sweet is that: financial gain AND moral superiority.
GMC is a government bureaucrat? Interesting …
Ben, while it seems logical and possible in Kansas, my thought is the moderate Republicans would be concerned about their next primary, should they work with the Dems to elect a Speaker. That said, it’s a marvelous idea; and I’m all for it.
Good point Vaughn – and it highlights another endemic problem. Turnout in August is very low – primaries are won by the “true believers” in both Parties. Then in the general election we are often faced with a choice of extremes with nobody in the middle.
Woodward’s book should be put under the fiction section. According to many people supposably interviewed in the book, they are either misquoted or some fanciful editorializing makes them appear to say or be involved in something which they were not.
More like the deniers statements belong under fiction. Colin Powell has come out with statements supporting Woodward’s book’s thesis.
Mr. Will points out the obvious; no more, no less. In a democratic republic, such as the United States, jockeying for political power and favor results in a dysfunctional government. However, any form of government in which humans are involved will be dysfunctional, no matter what form it takes. I personally prefer our peculiar form, no matter the level of dysfunction, assuming, of course, one branch is not trying a power grab to the disadvantage of the others.
Third parties make a mistake IMO by targeting only top spots and then complaining that they don’t get heard. What would happenstead if there were a good slate of alternative candidates at the Statehouse level this year? Getting the word out in a House district does not require the big buckes needed state/nation wide.
Then, with a dozen or so House members (I’m thinking KS state here) they become an important swing.
Ah Ben Huie,
Colin Powell was everywhere at once? Didn’t realize he was omni-present. Is he part of the “Q” continium?
Mr. Woodward’s style is to write down quotes from sources that are secondary, tertiary or worse. He then tries to confirm these statements from ‘credible’ people with no requirements of them being actually present when the words were spoken.
I think that’s what they call in the court of law, hearsay.
GMC is a prosecutor so, yes, I expect we have ideology colluding with some personal experience.
I’ve worked in both the public and private sectors, and have seen screwed-up bureaucratic nonsense, and private fiefdoms in both. What makes government worse–when it is—is the maze of regulations promulgated to comply with the yearly changes in laws.
Guess who makes those?
The anticipitory counter-argument is that the private sector also has to deal with legislative shenigans, but it’s a whole different ball game when legislators who know little-to-nothing about what you’re doing are, in effect, trying to run the business.
When a program is designed correctly, given competent professional leadership and ALLOWED to operate well by Congress (like Social Security), the result are different. The Pell Grant program worked great for years, until Congress started using it for social engineering.
Wlll is engaged in one of his usual rhethorical tricks, this time the all-or-nothing argument. His ideology is pseudo-anti-government, one which pretends that nothing can possibly be different.
There’s no such as perfect government, but that’s a far cry from accepting the current extreme corruption and incompetence as the norm. Of course, these types want to drown government in a bathtub (New Orleans was a test case). But you won’t ever catch them advocating actual anarchy (no government); they need the power of government to protect themselves and screw their enemies.
I had my issues with Carter and Clinton, but we had considerably less dyfunctional government under either man.
Don’t you love it when Bush portrays himself as the victim of government not working? It is like the proverbial child who throws himself on the mercy of the court after he murders his parents because he is an orphan. The man has balls, I’ll give him that.
JM – yes, it is hearsay. So war curveball’s BS that we went to war with. However, in the case of the Book that hearsay is corroporated with both many such witnesses as well as the observation of what the Bush bunch did (such as taking us to war needlessly, poor planning for the aftermath, etc)
Hearsay, with enough corroborating evidence, can be used. That clearly was NOT the case with Curveball or Ahmad Chalabi.
JM, hearsay truly; but not all hearsay is inadmissible in Court. And, in the “anti-terrorist” bill just passed by the congress, hearsay is allowed at the military tribunal hearings with substantially fewer restrictions than those that Bob Woodward apparently voluntarily places on himself in his reporting and his book writing. I daresay the same kind of hearsay was contained in his first two books on the Administration, but I don’t remember hearing much, if any, protest then.
Whistle-blowing is, by definition, hearsay. Without it we would never learn anything – just like the BushBots want.
If you don’t think George Will worshsis George W. Bush and his cronies then I must be seeing and hearing a different George Will????
Dysfunction and government go together like Fox News and the fair and balanced truth.
George Will DOES have an independent streak, but he’s firmly on the side of big money.
Hmm, George Will making excuses for the administration, and laying the blame for incompetence at the feet of the concept of government instead of those actually running said government (who JUST HAPPEN to be Republicans)?
NAHHHH, COULDN’T BE
O, JM, so all the quotes in woodwards book are “hearsay?” Damn, I gotta be laughing at that one. I think “backpeddle” by the ones quoted is a better description. You are one funny . . . whatever.
O, btw, Colin Powell was raked over the coals and left to burn by the bush admin via the “speech” at the u.n.. Cheney fed him total bs and let him destroy himself because the bushettes were afraid of him. Which was a damn shame: Powell might have been a quality politician.
I’ve believed for quite some time that combining Democracy with Capitalism creates a society that ultimately is free to be greedy. Our dysfunctional government is a result of that. Make no mistake both parties are guilty of fostering a system that promotes the “free to be greedy” society. Do you know any poor legislators? Probably what galls me the most lately is our Congress is giving our soldiers a measly 2.2% pay raise while no one gets to vote on their pay raises any more. All the while making little to no effort to investigate the waste, fraud and abuse of many of the contractors in Iraq. Shame on them — shame on us if we reelect them
Dysfunction and Republicans goes together.