The Persecution of Competence

February 25th, 2007 Posted in Of Interest, Torture

It’s one thing to get rid of people because you want political syncophants, but sometimes one gets the feeling that Bush and Friends simply dislike competence:

Internal Justice Department performance reports for six of the eight United States attorneys who have been dismissed in recent months rated them “well regarded,” “capable” or “very competent,” a review of the evaluations shows.

For Republicans, it is a matter of putting loyalty above truth: or the truth is seen merly as a matter of loyalty to a certain creed, to friends, to country. The world is composed only of friends and enemies, the pseudo-Straussians like to intimate. And whether Iraq is relevant to terrorism isn’t the point: it’s the thought that counts. All the better to have the members of your tribe consecrate their blood loyalty by embracing falsehoods and outlandish notions; by being made complicity in crimes; by celebrating everything as its opposite (Iraq is a great success, says Cheney, or the provisions that gut environmental regulations constitute a “clean air act”). Every spectacular abomination inflames the bonfire of power. And in the minds of people like Cheney and Bush this just is good old American success: to fashion by force of will any reality they out of facts on the ground (this is one of the purposes of torture); but above all to show that loyalty, not competence, is the foundation of power, and that no one ever got anywhere by succeeding — it’s breeding and connections, what you are and who you know. That is real power — unconditioned by the baseness of work or reflection, unweakened by nuance.

The official, speaking on condition of anonymity because of the confidential nature of personnel information, said, “The reviews don’t take into account whether the U.S. attorneys carried out departmental priorities.”

To put it another way: the reviews didn’t take into account whether these personnel were the kind of fuck-ups the Bush administration could really count on.