or Powell's or me• • •
"Mike and Jon, Jon and Mike—I've known them both for years, and, clearly, one of them is very funny. As for the other: truly one of the great hangers-on of our time."—Steve Bodow, head writer, The Daily Show
•
"Who can really judge what's funny? If humor is a subjective medium, then can there be something that is really and truly hilarious? Me. This book."—Daniel Handler, author, Adverbs, and personal representative of Lemony Snicket
•
"The good news: I thought Our Kampf was consistently hilarious. The bad news: I’m the guy who wrote Monkeybone."—Sam Hamm, screenwriter, Batman, Batman Returns, and Homecoming
March 29, 2005
Commission Recommends Changes In Titanic Deck Chair Arrangement
So, the government commission that examined how the government got Iraq and WMD so wrong is presenting its report tomorrow. It has some recommendations for improvement:
...the panel will propose more competitive analysis and information-sharing by intelligence agencies, improved tradecraft training, more "devil's advocacy" in the formation of national intelligence estimates and the appointment of an intelligence ombudsman to hear from analysts who believe their work has been compromised.
Whew, that's a lot of stuff to keep track of! Fortunately, my own commission just issued its own report and has a much shorter list of recommendations:
1. BE A COUNTRY THAT CARES ABOUT REALITY.
If we follow my commission's recommendation, we don't need to worry about restructuring 17,800 government departments, etc. We can leave everything as is, and everything will turn out fine. Conversely, if we don't follow my commission's recommendation, no Rube Goldberg-esque fiddling will help.
Right now, we don't care about reality. But maybe we'll start to care if reality punches us in the face a few more times.
UPDATE: Jared Diamond said this recently:
A society contains a built-in blueprint for failure if the elite insulates itself from the consequences of its actions.
By coincidence, here's a picture of George Bush giving George Tenet the Presidential Medal of Freedom:
I think that would make a fine Constitutional amendment, myself. Perhaps along with, "The United States cares about the environment" and "All citizens have a right to medical care". About time we added a couple lines to that musty old document.
Posted by: Aaron at March 30, 2005 05:59 AMHell. It punched you in the face once and things just got worse.
Posted by: Alexis S at March 30, 2005 08:56 AMHarry,
Yes, the Financial Times is known for its hatred of America. But you failed to point out this is merely part and parcel of its even greater hatred of capitalism.
And thank goodness for that, because otherwise I wouldn't be able to disregard that article.
Aaron,
I like to think we actually could boil the whole thing down to the "reality" line and everything else could be easily deduced from that first principle.
Alexis,
That's why I said "maybe."
Posted by: Jonathan Schwarz at March 30, 2005 09:36 AMI've seen it before, but that image stuck with me like herpes. Every time I see it, I think about how not a single person was held the least bit accountable for 911. Promotions all the way around!
Eight years of Clinton witch hunts (in which Tenet seemed to delight) followed by the greatest security failure in American history. And the people responsible, including George W. Bush, get rewarded for their negligence.
Some days it's almost too much to bear.
Posted by: Arvin Hill at March 30, 2005 09:27 PM
