Newsgroup: it.politica.internazionale
Titolo: Tutti gli amici del Presidente

The Bush government is the most corrupt - and the most incompetent -
government in American history:
September 12, 2005
All the President's Friends
By PAUL KRUGMAN
The lethally inept response to Hurricane Katrina revealed to everyone
that the Federal Emergency Management Agency, which earned universal
praise during the Clinton years, is a shell of its former self. The
hapless Michael Brown - who is no longer overseeing relief efforts but
still heads the agency - has become a symbol of cronyism.
But what we really should be asking is whether FEMA's decline and fall
is unique, or part of a larger pattern. What other government
functions have been crippled by politicization, cronyism and/or the
departure of experienced professionals? How many FEMA's are there?
Unfortunately, it's easy to find other agencies suffering from some
version of the FEMA syndrome.
The first example won't surprise you: the Environmental Protection
Agency, which has a key role to play in Hurricane Katrina's aftermath,
but which has seen a major exodus of experienced officials over the
past few years. In particular, senior officials have left in protest
over what they say is the Bush administration's unwillingness to
enforce environmental law.
Yesterday The Independent, the British newspaper, published an
interview about the environmental aftermath of Katrina with Hugh
Kaufman, a senior policy analyst in the agency's Office of Solid Waste
and Emergency Response, whom one suspects is planning to join the
exodus. "The budget has been cut," he said, "and inept political hacks
have been put in key positions." That sounds familiar, and given what
we've learned over the last two weeks there's no reason to doubt that
characterization - or to disregard his warning of an environmental
cover-up in progress.
What about the Food and Drug Administration? Serious questions have
been raised about the agency's coziness with drug companies, and the
agency's top official in charge of women's health issues resigned over
the delay in approving Plan B, the morning-after pill, accusing the
agency's head of overruling the professional staff on political
grounds.
Then there's the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, whose Republican
chairman hired a consultant to identify liberal bias in its programs.
The consultant apparently considered any criticism of the
administration a sign of liberalism, even if it came from
conservatives.
You could say that these are all cases in which the Bush
administration hasn't worried about degrading the quality of a
government agency because it doesn't really believe in the agency's
mission. But you can't say that about my other two examples.
Even a conservative government needs an effective Treasury Department.
Yet Treasury, which had high prestige and morale during the Clinton
years, has fallen from grace.
The public symbol of that fall is the fact that John Snow, who was
obviously picked for his loyalty rather than his qualifications, is
still Treasury secretary. Less obvious to the public is the hollowing
out of the department's expertise. Many experienced staff members have
left since 2000, and a number of key positions are either empty or
filled only on an acting basis. "There is no policy," an economist who
was leaving the department after 22 years told The Washington Post,
back in 2002. "If there are no pipes, why do you need a plumber?" So
the best and brightest have been leaving.
And finally, what about the department of Homeland Security itself?
FEMA was neglected, some people say, because it was folded into a
large agency that was focused on terrorist threats, not natural
disasters. But what, exactly, is the department doing to protect us
from terrorists?
In 2004 Reuters reported a "steady exodus" of counterterrorism
officials, who believed that the war in Iraq had taken precedence over
the real terrorist threat. Why, then, should we believe that Homeland
Security is being well run?
Let's not forget that the administration's first choice to head the
department was Bernard Kerik, a crony of Rudy Giuliani. And Mr.
Kerik's nomination would have gone through if enterprising reporters
hadn't turned up problems in his background that the F.B.I. somehow
missed, just as it somehow didn't turn up the little problems in
Michael Brown's résumé. How many lesser Keriks made it into other
positions?
The point is that Katrina should serve as a wakeup call, not just
about FEMA, but about the executive branch as a whole. Everything I
know suggests that it's in a sorry state - that an administration
which doesn't treat governing seriously has created two, three, many
FEMA's.

government in American history:
E se lo dice Kurgman allora....!!! :)
*ROTFL*
-Stefano