Bush Spends Presidents Day "Being a Dick"

(Reuters) Dallas TX - Enjoying his first Presidents Day without responsibilities for the last eight years, former President George W. Bush spent the Federal holiday being a dick.

Neighbors of the former President say that Mr. Bush woke up early on Monday morning and fired up the leaf blower at 6:30 AM. After he swiped the newspapers from other front porches, he then walked his dog Barney on neighbors' lawns and left without cleaning up the mess. Later in the day, he barbecued some foul smelling piece of meat, while drinking and hurling empty bottles of Schlitz at delivery men.

Former Chief of Staff Andrew Card said that this type of behavior should be expected from an Ex-President.

"You see, the man's been the leader of the free world for the last eight years. He's had to deal with 9/11, terrorism, war, 9/11, economic collapse, corruption, 9/11 and 9/11. Those kinds of things can really grate on a person. He's just finally getting a chance to let out his inner asshole."

Neighbors in the private community were not so forgiving.

"I voted for the guy, you see," said next door neighbor Montgomery L. Hibbert, "But what he was doing to Laura was just unforgivable. You could hear a loud 'thththblat' and then Mr. Bush shout 'Hey Laura! Did that one smell like the Prime Minister of India to you?' It was disgusting. In the evening he came out dressed only in his boxer shorts challenging anybody who came within earshot to a fight. You could see the whole butcher shop just swinging around."

Mr. Card, however, had a further explanation. "I suppose that after eight years, he figures that he's earned his own President's Day, which apparently involves things like turning the hose on children that get too close to his flower bed."

Friends of the former President say that this kind of behavior should not last long and will lose enthusiasm within a few weeks. His father, former President George H.W. Bush is helping him find a baseball team, oil company, or other first world nation to play with for the time being.

This Rough Magic...

I started this blog back at the beginning of George Bush's second term in office, still reeling from the disappointment of 2004. A lot of things happened during those four years, a good chunk of which was commented on here, by yours truly. While I didn't enjoy the term of office, I did have a little bit of fun prodding and poking the guy who is, essentially, my boss. But now, with a modicum of regret, it's time to go.



George W. Bush, that is, not this blog. (You didn't think I was quitting there for a moment, did you?)

Although I think I've been fairly balanced on the subject, don't believe anybody who reads this little project of mine has any illusions about where my sympathies lie on that man. Still, now that it's (almost) over, it's time to release the context of my hate chest, and disburse some of those links that I had gathered over the years so that I can, well, move on.

Let's start with the stuff that's going to linger:

The U.S. National Debt Clock

Casualties in Iraq

Neither of those things are particularly funny, and I suppose neither of them are going away any time soon.

From 2004 (with some not safe for work language):

An Anonymous Rant

An Open Apology

An Open Acceptance of the Open Apology

From a little later, this film strip.

Of course, there was this place, not affiliated with the real White House, which may close up shop on the 20th.

And finally, just to remind myself all the things that ticked me off in the first place, yesterday's summation of the last eight years by the 37th Most Loathsome Person of 2008:



But all these rough links, I here abjure and I shall delete from my bookmark folder, consigning them forever to the deepest, darkest depths of the Internet. If only the last eight years could so easily be erased.

Friggin' Commie

Obviously, Arlen Specter hates our Freedom.

More on DHS Personnel Changes

I thought a little bit more today about yesterday’s post on the changes to personnel policy at DHS and the return to the pre-Harding days of yore, and, the more I think about it, the more it seems like a desire to subcontract out everything to consultants.

If people continue to leave the government in droves and no new talent can be attracted because of the poor working conditions, then eventually you’re going to need more people to staff projects, right?. [This is especially true if you’re throwing Liberty ® and Freedom ® around like a drunken national-guard pilot.] So either you're going to have to slow the exodus, or improve working conditions if you want to have employees. Of course, consultants could do the work without having to be Federal employees, so the government wouldn’t have to pay benefits, improve retirement pacakges, promote people, or silly things like that.

So that's all fine and dandy, with one glaring problem: the consultants aren’t necessarily looking out for the client’s best interest. The consultants are in it to get paid. Remember the consultant's creed, "If you’re not part of the solution, there’s good money to be made in prolonging the problem." Besides, why worry about a problem if you're not going to be around long enough to have to deal with it? The obvious solution is to hire more consultants to fix the problem!

Let's leave that discussion aside for now.

So, I took a little trip over to the FEC to look at some of the major organizations that do consulting work, just to take a peek at what they’ve been contributing [Rule #4] to the respective parties since 1997:

Accenture: $20,500 (Dem); $65,512 (GOP)
Deloitte and Deloitte & Touche: $65,725 (Dem); $813,400 (GOP)
SAIC: $95,000 (Dem); $177,500 (GOP)
McDonnell Douglas*: $15,000 (Dem); $30,700 (GOP)
Boeing: $798,000 (Dem); $759,025 (GOP)
* McDonnell Douglas only reported for 1997

Source: http://www.fec.gov

Hmmm... This is interesting. I’ll admit that I’ve only had my lunch hour to work on this, but the preliminary results seem to indicate that several of the large contracting organizations contribute heavily to the GOP, who just happens to be pushing these, so-called, "reforms". Does that seem to suggest that the GOP is creating policies that would encourage the hiring of more contract workers, who happen to be employees of major contributors? Could I be suggesting that the current administration has less than the national interest at heart?

Perish the thought!

A more substantial analysis [which, if anyone would like to assist on, I’d be most grateful] would take a look at who the major consultants are, how many of their consultants the Feds are employing, what the contributions of these firms were from 1997-present, and what the contributions of the executives of these firms were.

To be continued...

"Reform" of the Civil Service

The Washington Post has an article this morning on changes to the Civil Service System in the New Department of Homeland Security. Here's the gist of the new plan:

The new system will replace the half-century-old General Schedule, with its familiar 15 pay grades and raises based on time in a job, and install a system that more directly bases pay on occupation and annual performance evaluations, officials said. The new system has taken two years to develop and will require at least four more to implement, they said.

Under the new plan, employees will be grouped into eight to 12 clusters based on occupation. Salary ranges will be based, in part, on geographic location and annual market surveys by a new compensation committee of what similar employees earn in the private sector and other government entities. Within each occupational cluster, workers will be assigned to one of four salary ranges, or "pay bands," based on their skill level and experience.

A raise or promotion -- moving up in a pay range or rising to the next one -- will depend on receiving a satisfactory performance rating from a supervisor, said officials with homeland security and the Office of Personnel Management.

OK, so a bit of the history on American Civil Service is summarized here, for those of you who remember who the Whigs were, but let me start with a few basic facts:

(1) Government work sucks. All work sucks, really, I mean that's why they call it "work" and not "fun". Have a good day at fun today, sweetie! That just doesn't sound right. Anyway, government work sucks more because of the type of crap that gets dealt with and the people who dish the crap out.

---UPDATE---
The Brookings Institute has an interesting report on how much life in Civil Service blows since September 11, 2001.
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(2) Bureaucrats get trashed and blamed for everything, as we are apparently an easy, faceless, nameless target. Oh for the days when Government was considered a noble profession! The excoriating of bureaucrats has been an increasing trend since the Carter administration, now since picked up by those keen on "reinventing" or "reforming" government. Reagan's "Government is the Problem" quote glosses over some key, valid reason for regulation and oversight... but that still hasn't stopped people for blaming their problems on Big Government instead of themselves.

[As an aside, if "The Ownership Society" fails, is it Government's fault?]

(3) Government pay sucks. It wasn't always like this. Prior to Carter, there was a system that the Old-Timers call "The Golden Handcuffs": workers were given a below market pay, with the promise that should they stay with the government until they were 55, they would retire with a pension equal to about 90% of their salary. Pretty sweet deal for both sides: Bureaucrats are encouraged to stick with their jobs and provide "institutional memory"; Government gambles that it will only have to pay out benefits to the really hard-core employees that will stick it out, and thereby save money. This system was dropped by Carter to a more traditional 401k type plan, basically negating a key distinction between government and private employment.

BTW, all those baby-boomers that were under the old system are quickly reaching retirement age. Washington Post, again, has a nice series on this here. No one has really figured out a way to fill all these upcoming vacancies, despite my prior badgering of the GAO.

Given the above, my first objection to the plan: if I'm a well educated member of the "Creative Class" [FURF!], what possible reason do I have to join Government Service? The work sucks. The pay sucks. The retirement plan sucks. Now, under the proposed plan, I don't even have job security. All that I have now is an overinflated sense of public duty, and that don't keep the utilities paid in the winter. I might as well just join the private sector now that the choice is basically a wash. The Government can't currently attract "The Best and the Brightest."

The supporter's argument doesn't address these matters. Their argument is "This plan allows for easier pruning of underperforming employees and prevents deadwood from hanging on to the bureaucracy ."

Bullshit!

The private market has enough of its share of deadwood, otherwise Dilbert and Office Space wouldn't be nearly as funny. Good employees (except those of us with "over active public duty glands") will leave, if they haven't already, for better, or at least "less bad" benefits. Marginal employees will now leave, as the choice between Public and Private employment has become a wash. The underperformers will do just enough not to get fired, but no more, just like they always do.

Now, the second part of my objection: if I'm being judged on "performance," to what standard am I being held? Am I rewarded for doing my job, or rewarded for pushing projects that are important or projects that the local member of Congress considers important? Is my boss' performance measured on how well she follows marching orders from the administration or how well she follows the rules?

As I've indicated in a previous post, bureaucrats aren't necessarily supposed to follow the will of the majority; we are supposed to follow the rule of law. If you allow the mob to control how the laws are enforced and on whom, you not only undermine equal protection, you also risk violating Rule #2. Once you start blurring the line between politics and bureaucracy, you start back down that road to patronage.

In sum: Working for the Government sucks at a basic level. This proposal merely exacerbates the increasing Federal employee vacuum, the real problem at hand. Political patronage is bad.

That's enough for now.

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This post brought to you by: Cups of Coffee #'s 1-3.

The Wild and Wonderful World of Jim

I'm feeling nostalgic this morning, so I've whipped out something from the archives.

During my Freshman year at [Non-Descript University] so many years ago, my friends and I met this Rhode Islander named Jim. We didn't know him that well; we assumed he was a reasonably smart guy and funny guy. One day during the course of a basketball/volleyball/tennis-like game that one of us had invented, an errant ball thrown by JM whacked Jim violently in the back of the head. Ever since that moment, the gentlemen of our dorm started noticing that Jim's intelligence had started to slowly decline and by the end of the year, Jim's I.Q. seemed to have hit rock Jim, sort of like Flowers for Algernon, only in reverse. We were afraid that Jim would eventually be relegated to the position of "Tending the Rabbits" with his friend Lenny. While we later determined that Jim had always been dumber than a box of dumb and the whack on the head did nothing to precipitate any of the following actions, there are those who still blame JM for turning Jim into a babbling idiot.

Well, maybe not a babbling idiot, but definitely an idiot who (and I'm serious here) wanted to go on a road trip to Belgium and offered to pay for gas.

Brad failed out of school at the end of the first semester when he copied an Engineering assignment verbatim from a classmate. He's now either a mutual fund manager, a motorsports champion, or works for the current administration.

I'm betting on the latter.