Government For Sale By Kevin Zahn got me to thinking about those people, like Fife Symington and George W. Bush, who subscribe to the fallacy that government should be run like a business by business people. 

  

The two aforementioned “businessmen” are a great example of the dire outcome of such a philosophy.  Government is fundamentally different than business, not withstanding the obvious fact government operations have to be accountable and spawn most if not all processes that any multi-national corporation would.  Government should not exist to make a profit, but to serve the people.  

  

And therein lays the rub: People with this viewpoint put the cart before the horse.  They focus on the detail of operational functionality and don't see the big picture, the purpose of government for the people, of the people, by the people.  With the likes of Fife and King George in the “CEO” office, the multi-national and other business interests will have special access to the Oval Office, and all attention will focus on the business sacred cow of the "Bottom Line".  

  

If we just simply take a look at the track record of these two examples, it becomes obvious that their convictions that they can straighten government out using business management techniques leads to special interest influence, corruption and if left unchecked, to a bankrupt government and society.  

        

But if we must be saddled with this philosophy of government, there is a wide range of competence within this stable of business people.  Unfortunately we are harnessed to the likes of George W. Bush, a stubborn mule rather than to a thoroughbred. 

  

King George has a degree from Yale.  If I were the administration at Yale, I would try mightily to hide that dim light under a bushel.   

  

 

Here is an article written back in December if 2005.  I would like to resurrect it for those of you that might be knew to VofA after this passed into the archives.  It is as pertinent today as it was then.

 

_____________________  Our MBA MBO President  __________________________   

    

 

Our MBA president is reportedly a disciple of the MBO (Management by Objective) school of thought where a problem is defined in terms of a goal and measurable objectives that have to be met in an orderly way to achieve that goal.   

 

The game of football is a familiar example.  The goal (to score by moving the ball into the end zone) is achieved by meeting concrete objectives (a first down) with metrics (did we move the ball ten yards?).   

 

Where is Bush’s Yale graduate level MBO training reflected in his Iraq “plan”?  At the beginning of his Iraq conquest there was little or nothing said about the "end zone" of democracy, and he stated explicitly that we were not in the business of nation building.  It was all about objectives: eliminate Saddam's WMD; er…, that is Saddam Hussein’s connection to Al Qaeda; er …, that is the “Axis of evil”; er…, evil torture chamber regime change; er…, democracy for the Iraqis. Yes!  That’s it - democracy for the Iraqis.  

 

His grandiose goal of democracy in Iraq gradually floated to the surface only as these other leaky excuses have sunk one after the other in the sea of irrefutable truth.  

 

Then democracy for the Iraqis morphed into stability for the region.  Now the Bush regime is trumpeting ever grander pronouncements to justify the mounting casualty count and the hemorrhaging of the national treasury.  It seems that we’re bleeding for democracy in Iraq to stem a conspiracy to create an Islamic Caliphate from Spain to Indonesia.  Wow!  Armageddon, “Bring it on!”  

  

It looks like our president slept through his Yale MBO classes.  He took a crash makeup course in Cheney MBO (Management by Obfuscation).  Not satisfied with that, he is working on another MBA degree (Messianic Bus***e Apocalypse).

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Unfortunately America is crashing with this spoiled brat!