Wednesday, March 11, 2009

Is the cabinet Caesar's wife?

Megan McArdle:
"The genesis of that crisis is that we have lost perspective on what the criteria for selecting and approving government officials ought to be. Financial trivia, minutiae from people's personal lives and political litmus tests have grown in importance while character, experience, intelligence, creativity and wisdom have fallen by the wayside. Ridiculous threshold obstacles stand alongside obscene ones and when taken with the relentless personal attacks associated with high level jobs in Washington -- the low pay, and the extreme difficulty of getting anything done -- we are seeing even those selected for senior jobs turn away in droves. We are at a moment of not one but an extraordinary array of great crises and challenges for America and we are effectively keeping the people we need most out of the positions we most need filled."

I don't really disagree with her here. We need good, intelligent people running the government; and the process seems almost too scary for any good person to subject themselves to. But in this particular case, Freeman seemed like the wrong guy for this job.....

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