Incompetent Design

In yesterday's Washington Post, fellow traveler Dan Froomkin posed the worthwhile, if not after-the-fact question, "What has Bush done to the government?"

His point being that various failures of the last seven years -- Katrina, Iraq, political appointments, et al -- have been the result of government incompetence. It's a logical and totally correct assertion, but it fundamentally misses the point.

It's not about whether the government is incompetent, broken, fucked up-- and it's not even about how. We know the answers to both of those questions. It's about why.

With this Administration, it boils down to this: as bad as you think it is, you haven't even scratched the surface.

That's because their nefarity is almost beyond the scope of rational thinking. To understand what the modern-day Republicans are doing and why, one must contemplate conspiratorial scenarios. Just because you're paranoid doesn't mean it isn't true.

Why has the government become so incompetent so quickly and so thoroughly? Because that's exactly what the Bush corporatists and the Cheney neocon-men want. It isn't an accident or bad execution or the passive dumbing down of America over centuries. This is premeditated, partner.

Over the last seven years, government incompetence has been an intentional objective of this administration, to be used as leverage to drive people into the waiting arms of private industry (as well as to consolidate executive power, but that's a story for another day). That's where the profit's at, and that's what it's all it about. That's the only thing that matters. That's what is driving US policy -- all of it -- immigration policy, foreign policy, health care policy, environmental policy, energy policy . . .

Remember Bush's privatization kick for social security (it's baa-ack), health care, and even education? These are all federal government-level issues that Bush's handlers want to hand over to the profit-producting private sector, and they're using broader policy goals like tax deductions, the War in Iraq, and intentional government impotence to force the issue.

This whole incompetence strategy has been about redistributing the wealth and power of the federal government into the hands of C-level executives, board members, and the private corporations they control and which in turn control American policy. The whole ownership society and privatization of social security schemes are about tricking the American population into thinking that they can get inside the velvet ropes with the real fat-cats. It is about getting us to invest in individual securities, mutual funds, and sketchy mortgages so that we will be compelled to support the corrupt policy decisions of our profitocracy by voting for candidates who support corporate largesse at all costs. But the reality is trickle-down theory. The general public might get a few copecks that fall through the fingers of the rich and powerful, but the rich and powerful are the ones making all the money, as well as all the decisions.

The conservatives, who've been chewing on the welfare state since the New Deal, used to advocate small government based on libertarian principles of privacy and rugged individualism. Now their small government rhetoric is just talking points from the Chamber of Commerce. Modern conservatives, such as Grover "the bathtub" Norquist, see the federal government as a foolish annoyance blocking their access to the gold mines of the US Treasury.

The war in Iraq is about oil, revenge, power, and delusions of grandeur, but it's mostly about looting the US Treasury -- and so is the conservative incompetence campaign of the last seven years.

A dysfunctional government serves as confirmation of the corporatists argument that private industry is more efficient and innovative -- not to mention profitable. It's a beautiful self-fulfilling prophecy the conservatives have set in motion. Set horribly short-sighted, greed-driven policies that intentionally benefit the rich while at the same time destroying the very structure of the government, then turn around and point to the crumbling government as justification for passing more intentionally destructive legislation. Then just repeat, re-elect, and repeat

Money is like matter: it is neither created nor destroyed, it simply changes hands. The conservatives want it to change hands from the public coffers (where it benefits everybody) to the private sector (where it benefits primarily the elite). Figure it out America.

The war in Iraq is costing about $12 billion a month. Where do you think all that money is going? Why are there more mercenaries making $1,000 a day in Iraq than there are US government soldiers making $1,000 a month? Why can't the federal government or the US military account for millions of dollars in cash and weapons that purportedly went to Iraq? Why was there zero oversight of war spending from 2003 to 2007? Why haven't the Bush warmongers ever given any clear idea of how much they envision spending on Iraq and the War on Terra'?

The conservatives have been working on their redistribution of wealth strategy since the Reagan years. Trickle-down economics, supply-side economics, tax cuts upon tax cuts that benefit primarily the wealthy while starving the federal government of the very funds that would make it vibrant and consequential, massive deficits (who holds those notes and who profits from that debt? Who has a concerted interest in seeing crushing deficits and who are their enablers?), systematic incompetence.

It's all come to a head in the Dumbya administration, which is the perfect conservative storm. Wielding all three branches of government and the battle ax of 9/11 above the heads of a cowed and disinterested American public, the conservatives have spent the last seven years in an intentional, targeted, selfish, and greed-driven effort to destroy the federal government. It has been orchestrated by the conservatives who have ingeniously used a defenseless federal government as the patsy in its own assasination. (Playing the role of the Warren Commission: the Democrats.)

Bush bears some responsibility, but mostly for being lazy. The confident, resolute, sure-as-shooting, happy idiot has been the perfect front man for the conservatives' incompetence ruse. It makes perfect sense. Bush is an idiot. He barely speaks English, surrounds himself with unqualified yes men, and can't find his way out of a paper bag. While the corporatists that really pull the strings of the Republican party are anonymously counting their money, the poor hayseed American public, who just realized that the Music Man made off with their monorail money, is bumbling along behind Bush with pitchforks and torches babbling about incompetence.

In his piece, Froomkin references author Jonathon Chait, who writes in his book, The Big Con, "lying has become a systematic necssity . . . integral to the Republican economic agenda." Exactly. Yet still, legitimate seekers of truth and accountability like Froomkin are unable to think outside of the box and realize that the incomptence is just an act, a shiny object, a red herring, misdirection intended to disguise the real enterprise.

Until journalists expand their minds and start questioning current events in the three-dimensional universe of ulterior motives, greed, and conspiracy, until they realize that Hilary and Dan Rather are right -- that there is a vast right-wing conspiracy -- the "news" will continue to be nothing more than a propaganda vehicle for those who have the power and conviction to use it for their own dark agendas.

Why is Tony Snowjob So Broke

It's now been two weeks and two separate rounds of media "reporting" on Tony Snowjob's decision to leave the Bushmill White House for financial reasons and nobody in the Main Stream Media (MSM) has asked the question that Page A-26 asked back on August 18: why is Tony Snowjob so broke?

Following is the sum total of the MSM's aggressive pursuit of the facts regarding Tony Snowjob's dire financial straits:

Q Why are you leaving?


MR. SNOW: Why am I -- because I ran out of money. A lot of people at home are saying, well, what do you mean, you make all this money. Well, you know what, I made more money when I was in my previous career. And I made the decision not to say to my wife and kids, you know, we've finally saved up all this money and done these things, and you're just going to have to give them away so Daddy can work at the White House. We took out a loan when I came to the White House, and that loan is now gone. So I'm going to have to pay the bills . . . . No, cancer has nothing to do with this decision.

Predictably, the MSM is covering Snowjob's tracks for him by not questioning why he needs money so badly and even praising his desire to eschew the dirty cheapness of public service for the "admirable" gold fields of private sector demagoguery.

"And who could blame him?" writes the annoyingly flippant Dana Milbank. "The former Fox News host suffered a cancer recurrence earlier this year, and he has the admirable desire to earn more money for his family than a government salary provides." Apparently there's nothing more admirable in this country than grabbing everything you can grab -- especially if you're an anonymous cog in the government machine making $34,599 a year-- Oh that's right, Tony Snowjob is one of the Administration's highest paid and highest profile celebrities, making $168,000 a year and rubbing shoulders with some of the richest, most powerful people in the country. Golly Milbank, no wonder Snowjob has to leave his government post. Just like Latrell Sprewell, he's got a fambly to feed.

The normally inquisitive and cynical Dan Froomkin's "best guess"is that Snowjob may not have much time left and wants to bank as much money as possible for his family -- a theory Snowjob himself publicly refutes.

Snowjob floated the idea that he needs the money to put his three kids through college but provided no details on where his kids might be going, how many are currently enrolled, and why Snowjob doesn't have enough resources to cover these costs. And would you believe it? The MSM failed to follow up on any of these points.

Such curiously incurious reporting once again leaves the public with no real idea why a highly visible, highly paid member of the White House executive team is so broke he has to leave his government job. Is it gambling? An ill-advised subprime home loan? Or did he just donate too much money to the Republican party?

Where did it all go? Is Tony Snowjob the only government employee facing the daunting prospect of making a go of it in this country? Is he the only one with college-age kids? He certainly is one of the few government employees making $168K a year, and he is one of the few that has had his own radio and TV shows.

Apparently, he took out a loan when he came into the White House last year and now even that borrowed money is gone.

But how can that be? How could he come into the White House from his high-paying private sector Fox News gigs empty-handed enough to have to take out a loan? $168K isn't enough to last him and his family two years, even with an additional loan? Where's all the money going? If he needs the extra cash to continue living a lavish and privileged lifestyle, then the American public needs to know where his priorities are. If he's out of money because of the outrageous cost of health care, then the American public needs to know that our health care system is so broken that even a member of the upper class like Tony Snowjob can't afford to pay for a serious illness. Either way, Snowjob and the White House are being intentionally opaque about his reason for leaving and the his financial status, and the MSM is doing its best to help out by not asking obvious follow-up questions.

We get that Snowjob is ill -- anybody who sees him on TV knows he is a sick man. But this is a bigger issue than Tony Snowjob. Forget for the time being that he made his bones attacking progressive ideas like a single-payer health care system -- an idea that would probably be directly benefiting him right now -- in favor of pure Republican politics. Now those Republican policies may be biting him right in the ass, which of course is something Snowjob and his Republican controllers don't want to become public knowledge. And so, once again, the MSM has found some reason -- in this case deep, deep respect for Tony pure-as-the-driven Snowjob -- not to ask the pertinent questions that would reveal the entire story to the American public.

Apparently, Snowjob and the White House don't have a problem looking into everybody else's financial situations, but don't like it when the spotlight is turned on them.

The public needs to know Snowjob's situation because it could help inform them about future elections and policy decisions. If the American public knows that even Tony Snowjob cannot afford to pay for his health care, they might be a lot more interested in a Democratic candidate with ideas about socialized health care in the 2008 election. And that is exactly what Snowjob and the Republicans are worried about and why they are being so cryptic about Snowjob's reasons for leaving.

We know what the Republicans' motives are, but what's up with the MSM? Why aren't they following up on obvious gaps in this story. What is their motive? These are legitimate questions that need to be asked and answered.

Again, the question needs to be asked, because just like Larry Craig aggressively worked to limit gay rights while himself leading a gay lifestyle, Tony Snowjob has been and continues to actively work against affordable health care for everybody in this country while at the same time claiming that his $168,000 a year salary isn't enough to cover his expenses. Could that be because the cost of his cancer treatment is so ridiculously high? Would not that be Craigian-like hypocrisy if Snowjob was actually leaving his job to earn more money on the lecture circuit because he can't afford his medical care even with an executive health care package, $168,000 a year, and 20 years of TV and radio earnings?

We'll never know. The MSM seems incapable of putting two and two together on this issue. In Thursday's press gaggle, there was just one timid question about the Bush Administration's war on S-CHIP, the government health insurance program for children -- a question that Snowjob predictably ducked. After his announcement on Friday, there was not a single question about why the cancer-stricken Snowjob is so financially strapped he has to step down immediately. Helpful hint for the MSM: two plus two equals four.

Why is Tony Snowjob so broke?