from the Economist, 10/15, during what the British authors might call "that bloody Harriet Miers cock-up": (emphasis added)
There are few things quite as hypocritical as American politicians hurling accusations of cronyism. The Democrats are lambasting George Bush about his weakness for promoting people such as Michael Brown, the horseman turned emergency agency chief. But does anybod seriously believe that a Democratic president wouldn't appoint cronies of his or her own?...
"All countries have their cronies. That much-cited model of moral rectitude, Tony Blair, is so surrounded by them that they are called "Tony's Cronies" (he made his old roommate, Charlie Falconer, Lord Chancellor). Edith Cresson, a European commissioner, appointed her dentist to an advisory position. But you expect that sort of thing in Brussels. America's problem is the contrast between high-minded idealism and low practice.
"America regards itself as the world's purest mertiocracy--a country based on talent, not patronage and toadyism. A quick glace at history shows this is rubbish. Most presidents surround themselves with a regional mafia: look at Carter's Georgians or Reagan's Californians or Clinton's Arkansans. These mafias produce some rum appointments: Jimmy Carter made his one-time campaign driver, Jody Powell, his press secretary; Bill Clinton made his chum from Miss Marie's kindergarten in Hope, Thomas McLarty, his chief of staff. Scandals are endemic. harry Truman's missouri cronies had a weakness for gifts of mink coats and freezers (an issue in the 1952 election). As for the antics of Mr Clinton's Arkansas buddies, the less said the better.
"That does not mean every close ally is a "crony": that term inplies incompetence as well as promiximity. Condoleezza Rice is no Michael Brown, for example, just as Robert Reich was no Webb Hubbell...In deed, the trick of ruing a successful administration--as both FDR and JFK demonstrated--is to balance the competing claims of personal loyalty and individual merit. Mr Bush, as the candidate of the Republican establishment rather than a regional insurrection, brought in plenty of bruisers. Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld are guilty of many things, but being mere creatures of the president is not one of them.
"Still, if the presidential branch doesn't run on cronyism alone, it cannot run without it. A presidential campaign is a large gamble. Presidents acquire obligations to people who spend years toiling for them in the wilderness. Not all these people will be from the first division. Presidents also form a peculiar bond of trust with people who served in the campaign trenches with them. When they are in the White House, the only people they meet are supplicants. So naturally they turn to their old buddies for comfort and advice. Presidents need cronies just as cronies need patrons.
"From this perspective the real question about Mr Bush's appointment of Ms Miers is not whether it is cronyism, but whether he has stepped over the line that separates business-as-usual from offensive favoritism."
2 comments:
I think the fact that the Senate described her answers to their questions as "inadequate and insulting" answers that last question.
yes, but Myers aside, look to the bigger issue: the pitiable state of American politics (and perhaps its capacity to render such as myself bitter and dead inside) is partly due to the conflict between near-utopic expectations, the idea of the American form of government as functionally and morally superior, and a quite dismally par-for-the-course disappointing reality.
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