Demagogue

When I wrote earlier today about how stunned people here are at the sheer incompetence of the American government, I thought I remembered writing something very similar last year, in the run-up to the election. Actually, I wrote more than a few posts on the subject of the administration's incompetence, mostly with this theme: assuming you agreed with Bush's ideology and his sense of mission, wouldn't you still be unhappy that he's been too inept actually to accomplish the mission? I found at least one Bush-supporting publication that reluctantly came to that conclusion.

What I wrote on another occasion shortly before the election still seems to me to have been correct (if I do say so myself); not surprising, considering that it's very much in line with what I wrote only this morning:

But move down from grand policy to the nitty gritty. This administration has shown a remarkable inability simply to execute competently the policies that it has decided to pursue. I was against the Iraq war from the outset, but I didn't imagine it was going to be run by Inspector Clouseau....

Dubya has so exalted faith over knowledge, loyalty over competence, and ideology over everything that our government's comical ineptitude has become an embarrassment. Europeans can understand disagreements over ideas and policy, but a lot of folks I run into over here can't fathom why Americans--even conservative Americans--would vote to retain someone who has demonstrated so thoroughly his unfitness for the job. Our government is a joke that everyone in the world is in on. Except us.

Considering Dubya's plunging poll numbers and the already eroding ratings he's getting for his handling [sic] of the Katrina crisis, perhaps we're finally getting the joke. We're like the kid who sits silent and befuddled while everyone else laughs at the punch line, and then, after the laughter has subsided, suddenly bursts out: "Oh, one to hold the lightbulb and two to turn the ladder! Ha, ha, etc., etc." So we're a bit dorky; at least we're figuring it out eventually.

Meanwhile, Tom Tomorrow draws out the Bush regime's spin on Katrina to its logical conclusion given the regime's aversion to facts, logic, and reality.