On Palin, DOT and 3rd Term: Time to Wake Up And Smell the Fertilizer

What's up with Citizen Rudy Giuliani? During a recent interview on "The Today Show," the former Mayor turned businessman stated, "It was one of the best debate performances I've ever seen ..." He was, unsurprisingly, talking about the debate between the vice presidential candidates, Sen. Joe Biden and Gov. Sarah Palin, the night before. Back in 2004, our 9/11-profiteering ex-Mayor poured it on in his keynote address at the Republican National Convention by stating in dramatic fashion, "... I grabbed the arm of then-Police Commissioner Bernard Kerik and said to Bernie, "Thank God George Bush is our President." Sigh!

Brandon L. Ward is president of the New York City Municipal Chapter of Blacks in Government, an employee advocacy group. He is a Mechanical Engineer with the Department of Transportation. He can be reached at brandonward@nycbig.com.

In Princeton philosophy professor Harry Frankfurt's book, which has a barnyard epithet for a title, a person who tries to pull the manure over our eyes "does not reject the authority of the truth, as the liar does, and oppose himself to it. He pays no attention to it at all. By virtue of this, bull[bleep] is a greater enemy of the truth than lies are."

Double Vision

More and more it seems to me that folks, even politicians and pundits, will say some of the craziest things to communicate the most bizarre ideas. For instance, Fred Barnes, the executive editor of the Weekly Standard, argues in his 2006 book, "Rebel in Chief," that Mr. Bush is a visionary on par with Ronald Reagan and Franklin D. Roosevelt. Obviously, in Mr. Barnes's assessment, this might be true; but one can readily argue that as a visionary, George W. Bush has some serious blind spots. After all, how does one explain his failure to see and find the WMD in Iraq?

The staggering reality is, the trickle-down theory associated with BS is manifestly apparent in the presidential race — especially the spin about what constitutes qualifications.

Writing in a recent Newsweek article, "When Atheists Attack," the writer Sam Harris observes:

"The point to be lamented is not that Sarah Palin comes from outside Washington, or that she has glimpsed so little of the earth's surface (she didn't have a passport until last year), or that she's never met a foreign head of state. The point is that she comes to us, seeking the second most important job in the world, without any intellectual training relevant to the challenges and responsibilities that await her. There is nothing to suggest that she even sees a role for careful analysis or a deep understanding of world events when it comes to deciding the fate of a nation. In her interview with [WABC-TV's Charles] Gibson, Palin managed to turn a joke about seeing Russia from her window into a straight-faced claim that Alaska's geographical proximity to Russia gave her some essential foreign-policy experience. The problem, as far as our political process is concerned, is that half the electorate revels in Palin's lack of intellectual qualifications. When it comes to politics, there is a mad love of mediocrity in this country."

Competence Counts

With the latest financial meltdown on Wall Street and outrage over executive compensation, one would hope that our dollar-a-year chief executive would see leadership is just not qualifications — it's also competency. Call me an elitist, but I will argue until I am blue in the face about the fact that no matter how much lipstick my agency, the Department of Transportation, put on this pig-of-an-idea about qualification. A guy without a college degree, a series of vague managerial positions supervising pothole crews, and a proclivity for giving folks the mushroom treatment — feed them a lot of fertilizer and keeping them in the dark — is not qualified to be the executive in charge of the city's bridge repair and maintenance program. Even worse, some of DOT's deciders in charge would encourage us to believe that his role is strictly administrative and not technical (meanwhile, his subordinates are mainly licensed professional engineers). If that's the case, one can reasonably conclude that DOT is paying the Executive Director of Bridge Maintenance and Repair a six-figure salary to be partially responsible.

What is so unnerving about such executive BS is that when stuff hits the fan, the blame is never evenly distributed. In fact, in the parlance of President Bush, the Mayor and/or commissioner would tell us in a heartbeat that the guy is doing a heckuva job. Against this backdrop, I agree with Mr. Harris's lament about Ms. Palin's qualifications — it represents a joyful marriage of confidence and ignorance. To put it bluntly, Ms. Palin's ambition exceeds her professional experience.

Fool's Paradise

It is my contention that a basic underpinning of a "smart government" is having qualified people in responsible charge of our agencies mission critical positions. Unfortunately, too many city agencies have become a fool's paradise for leaders with resumes of Ms. Palin's variety: ambitious and, doggone it, self-congratulatory.

It is no surprise that in light of our Mayor's business successes that we are hearing all sorts of talk about giving him a shot at a third term.

What we don't know yet is how the City Council will vote on this legislation proposed by our Mayor. What we do know is that Michael Bloomberg is qualified to lead, especially at these financially uncertain times. However, the implicit idea that he is the only one qualified to bail us out of this financial mess is BS. As Frederick Douglass told us a long time ago, I have never met a group of men who were so wise and so good that they could be trusted with power over the rights of other men. Needless to say, I think New Yorkers have a right to vote on this matter for a third time.