Among its myriad failings, the Bush administration has repeatedly gotten it wrong when it comes to getting it right. Over the last eight years, there has consistently been no penalty for those who have gotten things - even the most important things - wrong, and no reward for those who have gotten things right.
Call it Bush Darwinism: survival of the unfittest.
Over the weekend, Barack Obama made an encouraging move to reverse that unintelligent design by appointing retired General Eric Shinseki to be the Secretary of Veterans Affairs. While having had a long and distinguished career, Shinseki is most famous for getting it right when it came to Iraq - and for suffering the consequences typical in the Bush administration for getting it right: being shown the door.
Shinseki, you may recall, was the general who told Congress in February 2003 that it would take "on the order of several hundred thousand soldiers," to occupy Iraq, because "we're talking about post-hostilities control over a piece of geography that's fairly significant with the kinds of ethnic tensions that could lead to other problems."
That's about as wise and prescient an assessment as you can get. But wisdom and prescience were two attributes that had little place in the Bush White House, so Shinseki's sober judgment was quickly ridiculed by Donald Rumsfeld and Paul Wolfowitz, the Tweedledum and Tweedledumber of the Iraq war. Rumsfeld preferred going "to war with the Army you have, not the Army you might want or wish to have." And Wolfowitz, whose crystal ball said the U.S. would be greeted as liberators and that the war would pay for itself, called Shinseki's estimation "outlandish" and "wildly off the mark."
For being so spectacularly wrong, Rumsfeld was rewarded by being allowed to stay in his job for three-and-a-half more years. Wolfowitz's reward came in the form of a cushy appointment to head the World Bank. Too bad they didn't do an even worse job -- maybe they'd have earned the Presidential Medal of Freedom, like Paul Bremer and George Tenet did.
As detailed by James Fallows, Shinseki responded to Rumsfeld's and Wolfowitz's bullying with stoic dignity: "Despite being unfairly treated, despite being 100% vindicated by subsequent events, Shinseki kept his grievances entirely to himself."
In discussing the Shinseki appointment on Meet the Press, Obama gave a nod to the karmic justice aspect of it:
BROKAW: He's the man who lost his job in the Bush Administration because he said we will need more troops in Iraq than Secretary of Defense Don Rumsfeld thought we would need at that time.
OBAMA: He was right.
It will be nice if "he was right" continues to be something that qualifies one for a job in the Obama administration instead of the cause for dismissal it was under Bush.
Obama's commitment to reversing Bush Darwinism isn't as clear when it comes to his economic team. As Frank Rich notes, Obama's economic brain trust -- Tim Geithner, Larry Summers and Robert Rubin - didn't exactly exhibit a Shinseki-like foresight when it came to the financial meltdown.
And, as was the case with Iraq, it's not as if there weren't those that got it right when it came to the economy. Economists Joseph Stiglitz, Nouriel Roubini, Nassim Taleb, and Paul Krugman did. And financial blogger Tanta (aka Doris Dengey), who raised a red flag about Citigroup in late 2006, while Rubin continued to rake in mega-millions on the bank's increasingly risky moves. Tanta died last month at 47 -- much too soon, but long enough to know she had gotten it right.
In his 2006 book The Black Swan, Taleb wrote: "The financial ecology is swelling into gigantic, incestuous, bureaucratic banks -- when one fails, they all fall. The increased concentration among banks seems to have the effect of making financial crises less likely, but when they happen they are more global in scale and hit us very hard... I shiver at the thought."
Fittingly, on the same weekend Shinseki was appointed, Krugman was in Stockholm picking up his Nobel Prize. Here he is from 2005:
The U.S. economy is currently suffering from twin imbalances. On one side, domestic spending is swollen by the housing bubble, which has led both to a huge surge in construction and to high consumer spending, as people extract equity from their homes. On the other side, we have a huge trade deficit, which we cover by selling bonds to foreigners. As I like to say, these days Americans make a living by selling each other houses, paid for with money borrowed from China. One way or another, the economy will eventually eliminate both imbalances.
By making a deliberate effort to reward those who got it right -- on Iraq, on the economy, on global warming, on health care -- Obama will not only send a message that the days of Bush Darwinism are over, he will also puncture the White House's favorite defense, especially on Iraq, that "everybody got it wrong."
No, they didn't. And it's vital that the Bush apologists, in the midst of their Bush Legacy Project, not be allowed to rewrite history.
Recognizing and rewarding Those Who Got It Right also makes it far more likely that the next Eric Shinseki will be willing to step forward and speak up. Obama's appointment of Shinseki is a solid first step.
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The group around him are the equivalent to the "cold warriors" of the previous generation and previous administration. Biden as V.P. will give old Cheney a run for his money. Gates? Emmanuel? Clinton?
Are we in an echo chamber?
But it would at least have given me a glimmer of hope if Obama were include people like Feingold in his little inner circle.
It wouldn't hurt Obama to listen to people like Kucinich or Ralph Nader either.
Obama says he wants to hear all sides - arguments that he doesn't agree with - and then decide. What does he expect to hear from Clinton, Gates or Emmanuel?
May the words "Shinseki-like foresight" join the lexicon of usage in the english language much like "the real McCoy" . May the question asked of every appointee be "does he/she have "Shinseki-like foresight"". We'd be a better nation for it.
She was one so young 47yrs yet insightful and wise. May her family find comfort and peace in their great loss. As for Economists Joseph Stiglitz, Nouriel Roubini, Nassim Taleb and Paul Krugman we offer our heartfelt gratitude for your willingness to put yourself out their when the Administration was not listening.
Please continue to alert us of the dangers looming in the Financial Institututions, We are all listening.
GREAT job calling out the media's efforts to smear Obama with innuendo about Blogojevich (per emailed daily Republican talking points).
When Larry asked, "Really? How'd anyone do that?' she was ready with the specifics and examples.
I only wish more people would call out these people (like Pat Buchanan, who was still spinning the, "What did Obama know and when did he know it" party line this morning).
Obama nailed Nader perfectly, "All he wants is for you to listen to him. He's not interested in anything anyone else says."
Nader's not the man he was in 1970. He's a kook--whose ideas are actually harmful.
All in all, a fairly disappointing start for Obama, but I'll give him the benefit of the doubt, for the first 100 days, or so....
Gates won't be there forever and why not have a Republican clean up a Republican mess and get us out of Iraq...in the meantime...Shinseki will prove himself and will be ripe for the jump to Defense.
Let loose, not so subtle! We need DOZENS more cabinet picks that reward those who can read writing on the wall.
It's sad to see honest hard working Americans yearn for justice and equality, peace and opportunity, and get none. No matter which way they vote.
But third and most importantly,Rice approved of the Bush doctrine of preemptive war. We recently remembered Pearl Harbor on December 7 which President Roosevelt called a "Day of Infamy." What was the infamy? Well it was that Japan had engaged in a preemptive attack. If Susan Rice could cheerlead the Bush Doctrine of preemptive attack then that is an inexcusable failure "to get it right."
Shinseki is just the exception that proves the rule: Obama is following in the Bush tradition of rewarding people who got it wrong.
M God..we sure have poor memories. Read up on this stuff for pete's sake..
And your just twisting quotes to your own arguments. The "infamy" was merely the attack itself. It did not present itself as a doctrine of preemptive strike. In you believe in war so much, perhaps we should attack all Muslim countries as a preemptive strike policy. Why don't you go join the army and go to Iraq , instead of being a couch commando? Why didn't we attack Russia instead of just having an arm's race? Making stuff up as usual, typical Republican BS and Fox News type arguments with no real facts and exaggerations.
I'll wait on the other 29 bad appointments but i wouldn't mind you posting it one by one.
As far as Krugman goes....Huh?
Later.
But third and most importantly,even if Rice thought that there was a program in Iraq, that did not make the Bush doctrine of