Archive for: March, 2006

Brownie On Colbert: The Follow Up

Mar 29 2006 Published by Turk under Government, Politics, Republicans, Television

GovernmentTelevisionPoliticsSo Brownie (Michael Brown formerly of FEMA, for those of you who have been smoking crack in a basement for the last year), was on The Colbert Report last night. While he wasn’t quite the embarrassment I was afraid he would be, he did make me think about the notion of blame, and the bloodlust Americans have for laying it at someone’s feet. Colbert, in his odd way, touched on this, but didn‚Äôt pursue it.

The problem with Brownie isn’t the fact that he was a colossal failure (which he was) or that DHS is a bureaucratic disaster (which makes it stand out in comparison to the rest of the federal government in what way?). The trouble is we, as a people, like closure. We crave it.

Colbert: you were doing something good for a while. You took the blame.
…
[W]e as a country had to blame somebody and move on.

Colbert is exactly right. We need someone to blame, so we can feel better. If it’s not Brown, then who is it? Brown had some ideas.

Colbert: [A]ll right. So who — who is the person to blame? Because we have to blame one person. Right? One person’s head has got to roll, and yours won’t seem to lop off. So who is the one better than you to blame? Do you blame Chertoff?

Brown: I’d like to.

Nearly Headless Brown is denying us our fix. He has broken out the blamethrower to avoid responsibility for FEMA’s and the government’s failures.

That’s our problem with Brown, and by extension, with the Administration. It’s never anyone’s fault – which is sadly accurate. The federal government has become so big, so bloated, and so ineffective, that it is unlikely anything it touches will be altered for the better. That has nothing to do with any one individual.

We want it to, though. We‚Äôre not prepared to accept the inadequacies of government are to blame. It has to be a person. We saw the government‚Äôs failure every night on our TV. We had picked out our fall guy – FEMA. We knew where to lay the blame. Yet the President stood next to the guy in charge of FEMA, and praised the “great job” he was doing.

Americans don’t like the concept of blameless blunders – even if their own tendency to demand more and more from government is the real culprit. They need a face. They need to see someone get fired, and it needs to happen publicly. It’s stupid, but it’s true. Michael Brown had to be that guy. We wanted him to be fired. We needed him to be fired. We demand our pound of flesh. We‚Äôre a twisted people, and we have our rules.

Look at The Apprentice. This is a program devoted to the concept of firing the guy who screwed up the worst, and promoting the guy that screwed up the least. It’s not a show based on hiring the best possible candidate, it’s a show based on hiring the guy that didn’t fuq up bad enough to get fired. The entire premise of the show is laying blame for failure.

Colbert: [Y]ou were the scapegoat for a while, but it’s no good if the goat wanders back into town and starts pointing fingers at people.

He‚Äôs right, again. Brownie’s romp through Comedy Central, and continued attempts to blame others, have further denied us our craving.

In this case, and many others, people are turning on the Administration. I believe this is solely because they have been denied their craving for accountability. There is plenty going wrong to warrant a good round of terminations. We can’t get them, though, because the Administration values loyalty above anything else. That makes us angry.

While much has been made of Andy Card’s departure, I do not believe this will be the round of layoffs people are expecting to see. I still believe that has more to do with fatigue than an attempt to placate the masses. We’re going to have to wait a little longer for our fall guy.

We’re not happy about that.

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In Memoriam

Mar 28 2006 Published by Turk under News Media, Politics, Republicans

I’ll always remember the following poem from a Bloom County comic strip I read as a kid.

How I love to watch the morn,
with golden sun that shines,
up above to nicely warm,
these frosty toes of mine.
The wind doth taste of bittersweet,
Like jasper wine and sugar.
I bet it’s blown through others’ feet,
like those of… Caspar Weinberger.

Godspeed, Mr. Secretary.

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Bad, Blogger! Bad! Bad!

Mar 28 2006 Published by Turk under Politics, Republicans

So the Chief of Staff steps down at the White House, and the blog world is atwitter. Everyone will make their pronouncements about the “shake up” and rumble about this being overdue, blah, blah, blah…

The fact is, this should really not surprise anyone. For those who believe the Presidency is the hardest job on Earth, I would disagree. As the President, you have to make a lot of really difficult decisions, but ultimately the responsibility for enforcing those decisions falls to the Chief of Staff. He’s the guy that not only has to make sure the government is acting on the President’s words, but he also has to keep the train running on time.

Andy Card has done a phenomenal job. After five years of not seeing your family, working ridiculous hours, and being a public whipping boy, anyone would be walking out. In fact, most people would have been gone two or three years ago. It’s a testament to his abilities that he is served that long without a psychotic break.

Josh Bolten will come aboard. Yes, there may be some additional turnover. If you have ever worked for someone you really respected and liked, you’ll understand that there may well be some people who go with Andy. Some people may feel they mesh better with an Andy Card than they do with Josh, and they’ll move on. Josh will also bring with him some top flight people with whom he has worked.

I should probably get all spun up about it. That’s what bloggers do. But all of this, despite what you will hear from the left and the MSM, is not indicative of trouble in the White House. This is simply a reshuffling of the deck. Nothing more.

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Overshares

Mar 28 2006 Published by Turk under Society

This is unrelated to politics, pop culture and technology, but it’s something I run into occasionally and it bugs the crap out of me. It’s called an overshare, and it’s happening way too frequently. There was a time when it was an exception, but it’s increasingly becoming the rule.

As an example, a while back, a buddy of mine (we’ll call him Bob to protect the innocent) and I are stocking up on beer and snack foods for a party we’re going to have. As we’re going through the checkout line at the grocery store, the following conversation takes place:

Clerk: How are you guys doing?

Bob: I’m doing good. How are you doing?

Clerk: Well, let me tell you. My roommate moved out and owes me a bunch of money and she stole my cat and…”

It happened again this morning when I asked a colleague how her day was going. Instead of “good, and you?” I got, “I’ve had better days. I’ve had a lot better days.”

For those who see nothing wrong with this, let me offer some guidance. There are a number of platitudes in common usage that should always draw the same response – whether that response is accurate or not. For example:

Q: How are you doing?

A: I’m fine.

See? It’s simple. It’s tidy. It wraps up the need for any further discussion. Most of all, it avoids awkward moments like those above.

Let’s work on it, ok folks?.

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MyGOP

Mar 27 2006 Published by Turk under Politics, Republicans, The Internet

MyGOPLast week, I signed up for the GOP’s new “MyGOP tool”. I had not had a chance to delve much deeper into the tool than the signup process before the weekend.

Having taken a shot at the GOP guys last week for the obscenity filter they’re using on the sign up process, I should be fair and share my thoughts on the rest of the tool. Obscenity filter aside, what they have built is really pretty cool. It takes the canned activism that was pioneered in 2004 and really opens up the throttle. It’s not as open as I would like, but I’m not going down that road again, so I’ll be happy with the baby steps.

On the campaign we were always debating how high we should set the online activity goals. Set them too high, and you turn off people with a limited amount of time. Set them too low, and people think you’re jerking them around and the activity doesn’t really matter.

MyGOP solves this by letting you set your own goals. As an activist, I tell you how many people I’ll recruit. I’ll tell you how much money I will raise. Once I set my goals, I can send the e-mails to friends from the same page. Everything I need to manage my campaign within the campaign is right there. It’s as friendly and accessible as the rest of their action center, but with a lot more under the hood.

The site even comes with your own version of the fundraising thermometer for your blog. You can track your progress against goals from your blog, and let your readers see their contribution. It’s really good to see them adding viral fundraising, so let’s hope the GOP blog community adopts it.

As with many tools rolled out by the national committees, I think they’ll be much more effective when employed by campaigns. By underwriting the initial development of these tools, the RNC makes them available to the lower tier. It may take another cycle before you see tools like this in local campaigns since most of this year’s candidates are taking their queues from the ’04 Presidentials – but ’08 is starting to look interesting.

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