Everything's for show, except getting re-elected:
EJ Dionne in the WaPo puts forward the idea that (and I think it’s true) that the switch of Karl Rove from part policy to pure politics for the midterms has nothing to do with anything else than that. Policy stuff is dead. Nothing is going to go through Congress this year of substance except the idea of Re-Elect the GOP. If they don’t pull that off, they will all be investigated to within an inch of their lives, and every shoddy, suspect deal in the universe will come up for review by congressional committees out for blood. Needless to say, Rove doesn’t want that.
Elsewhere, there’s defense appropriations going through that rob Peter Grunt to Pay The Contractors’s Paul. Contractors (and the Congressmen that love them) have some big ticket items like the C-17 assembly line and the ever-resurgent Osprey V-22. To pay for these white elephants, Congress is proposing to cut basics like night vision goggles, UXB equipment and other things soldiers need on a day to day basis. As one commentator said: This should be shocking. It's not. That whole "We're at war" mantra apparently doesn't actually mean providing equipment and resources to the soldiers who actually fighting the war.
Again and again, that’s the situation. You can say that you’re actually taking care of security and providing for the troops in the field, but the real idea of the spending of all this money is to provide for fatcat contractors, pork for cops in Yell County, Arkansas to get neat cop stuff, and to feed variations on Halliburton, but not to actually accomplish anything of significance. No real homeland security, and no real support for the dude on the ground. Why are these guys getting away with looking tough on anything? It’s all for show.
Another element on this is in a WaPo Editorial: the pandemic flu situation. Another guide for the federal agencies in case of something like this hitting, like how to print US money abroad, but nothing on how to actually deal with the sick people, or what’s being done to crank up and distribute an effective flu vaccine. Or to keep the hospitals going or to develop a corps of something like Mao’s ‘Barefoot Doctors’ for emergency support in the field when hospitals would get overwhelmed. (80% of ERs couldn’t handle a terrorist emergency in any event, much less this.)
The last I’d heard was from the HHS Secretary, who says we should all look after ourselves and stock up our pantries and freezers. Dass nice. But considering DHS and other federal screwups during and since Katrina, I don’t trust any of their plans to be anything more than nicely printed words in a classy binder that is signed off on with great flourish and PR at the time and forgotten or inadequate for any real emergency.
Ignatius in the WaPo: More org charts, no improvement in the spy game. For all of the big promises, there’s been lots of org chart shuffling and no real action. The CIA is mired in do-you-support-the-Maximum-Leader’s-politics-and-goals litmus tests and this-isn’t-the-right-answers-give-me-the answers-I-want systems and in a death spiral as career analysts decide that they can’t take it anymore and are quitting right and left. Some outsiders who are supposed to oversight all this are finding out that the complex organization on lines of responsibility, action and assistance on all of this is worse than trying to figure out a squadron of Mafia holding companies used for faking out the feds. Stay tuned.