It's not ignorant individuals; It's the Republican Party creating the problem!

From Kevin Drum we finally get someone (besides me) who recognizes the Republican problem with ignorance and incompetence.

THE REVENGE OF THE GUT....Back in 2001, the widely respected scholar John DiIulio spent about half a year in the George Bush White House as head of the Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives. Here's what he told Ron Suskind about his experience:

In eight months, I heard many, many staff discussions, but not three meaningful, substantive policy discussions....The lack of even basic policy knowledge, and the only casual interest in knowing more, was somewhat breathtaking.

This weekend, six years after serving in the same White House at the same time as DiIulio, former Bush speechwriter David Frum finally decides that maybe DiIulio was right. What's more, after listening to Ron Paul and Mike Huckabee burble confidently on about absurdities, he concludes that just maybe the entire conservative movement bears some blame for this state of affairs:

The conservatives are technically incompetent ideologues! Surprise!

Only it's not that big of a surprise. It is a direct result of the system of conservative attitudes.

Who do conservatives look to when they want to promote someone to management? Someone with the proper ideological attitudes who is approved by others who also have the right attitudes. That's a lot more important than technical expertise. So you get people who are promoted because they can spout the party line and because they are "known" by those making the promotions. Expertise is considered much less important than attitude and being known by the decision-makers. (It's called being promoted for political reasons.) So what do you get in top management positions in the government? Ideologues and cronies who do not have any expertise in the job itself!

Classic examples from the Bush administration are Michael D. Brown who was head of FEMA when Katrina and Rita hit the Gulf Coast, and the "kiddy corps" of young and inexperienced staffers of Bremer's Coalition Provisional Authority selected from resumes received and approved by Jim O'Beirne through the American Enterprise Institute.

Conservatives have a pattern of thought in which all that counts is that the answer to a problem should be the one they want. They are not interested in the process that gets the result - that's a problem for those they tell to deliver the results they demand. And if the desired result is not delivered, they find someone else to give them that result. But the top managers don't soil themselves with the details of HOW the job will be done.

I'm not sure if this is a result of their "Free Enterprise - No Regulations" rhetoric, or if the FE - NR" rhetoric grows out of the disinterest in process. It clearly is a major reason for the "Small Government" ideology. Regulations and a government large and efficient enough to enforce them interfere with getting the desired results and force the conservatives to involve themselves in dirty process details.

A reasonable inference is that this manifestation of the conservative philosophy grows out of the attitudes of lazy top managers who feel that involving themselves in the details of work demeans them and their status. It certainly is the same philosophy held by most feudal European aristocrats, growing out of the aristocratic attitude that aristocrats should not get their hands dirty doing commercial work.

Another part of the conservative attitude is the strange idea that successful managers create their own reality. That, too, is a result of the aristocratic ignorance of process and the details needed to achieve a result. If the top managers don't know enough to tell the subordinates how to do the job better, they can still demand that they subordinates "create their own reality." World War I provided an interesting example of the aristocratic avoidance of details. The French Army was trained that the way to defeat the enemy was to continually attack. The elan of the always attacking French army was to be the key to winning battles. They would create their own reality. The colorful and extremely easy to see uniforms the French Army entered the war with were intended to foster that elan. This doctrine came from the conservative and aristocratic attitudes of the French top Generals. The Germans, however, developed their doctrines of war fighting by the German General Staff, which was staffed by middle class German officers. Those were hardworking middle class officers who studied railroad schedules and the effects of machine guns and artillery in the defense. The German General staff also adopted a battle uniform that was hard to see in combat. Needless to say, the French troops suffered unnecessarily high casualties early in the war - and failed to create the reality they wanted.

American conservatives have displayed all of these dysfunctional negative aristocratic attitudes towards work and the importance of process.

Conservative failure running government is a forgone conclusion. Conservatives - as a group - do not have the attitudes needed to succeed running the government in a complex Industrial society. This is not a problem of corrupt, ignorant and inadequate individuals. This is a result of the conservative culture. The conservative Republicans recruit, train and promote people with these dysfunctional attitudes. A conservative without those attitudes cannot succeed in the Republican Party where ideological rigor and party connections are given much greater weight in promotion decisions than technical competence.