Bogus Gold

Remember when "Heck of a job, Brownie!" represented a stinging indictment of an administration's self-damning tendency toward cronyism and incompetence? You know the moment I mean. At the height of the Hurricane Katrina disaster, President Bush arrived on the scene in New Orleans and lauded his personal selection to lead the Federal Emergency Management Agency using that phrase. Of course most people didn't think FEMA had done an especially good job responding to the crisis, and a little digging discovered that "Brownie", a.k.a. Michael Brown, had essentially no qualifications for running FEMA in the first place. The resulting public outcry resulted in "Brownie" being forced to resign and left the Bush administration's reputation for competence in government irrevocably stained. Good times... good times...

But things are all better now, right? Feel the Hopenchange!

Brian Deese, the 31-year-old Yale Law School dropout charged with restructuring General Motors, takes a lot of flak for his inexperience.

Although a think tank researcher with zero business experience might be an unusual choice for such a big job, GM desperately needs a break from the past. Deese, a novice in an insular industry full of seen-it-all-before veterans, may be uniquely qualified to look beyond what "everyone knows" is possible and bring America's largest automaker into the future.

Emphasis mine, with my jaw still hanging open from the brazen chutzpa of that spin.
Can you think of any truly difficult situation in your life where you'd accept that logic? Just think about it for a moment and try to comprehend what is being said there.

"Every accountant you've seen so far has advised you to declare bankruptcy as you simply have no means to pay your debts. It's time to let someone with no knowledge of finance or your financial situation take a crack at it!"

"The electrical wiring in your house is not up to code and is going to cost thousands to repair, according to every licensed electrician who's looked at it. Why not grab some guy off the street who's knowledge of wiring begins and ends with flipping a light switch to fix it?!"

"Your cancer has proven inoperable so far, but all you've seen are experienced surgeons and oncologists. Let's split you open and have someone with absolutely no relevant experience have a go!"

Fun as that kind of riffing may be, please note that President Obama is actually, literally following that logic right now in his auto-industry intervention.

Ah, but not to worry. The dogged Washington Press Corps is on the case! They, who pride themselves in their fierce independence and uncompromising dedication to the truth, would surely never allow such a thing to go unremarked.

Here's the New York Times introducing the uniquely unqualified Mr. Deese:

It is not every 31-year-old who, in a first government job, finds himself dismantling General Motors and rewriting the rules of American capitalism.

But that, in short, is the job description for Brian Deese, a not-quite graduate of Yale Law School who had never set foot in an automotive assembly plant until he took on his nearly unseen role in remaking the American automotive industry.

Wow! What a stinging setup! I can't wait to see the smackdown that follows this! ...

Mr. Deese’s role is unusual for someone who is neither a formally trained economist nor a business school graduate, and who never spent much time flipping through the endless studies about the future of the American and Japanese auto industries.

Umm... well that's... a bit less stinging than I was expecting. Surely there's a criticism a bit harsher than "unusual" coming in regard to this. ...

Mr. Deese’s route to the auto table at the White House was anything but a straight line.

Umm... (scrolling ahead)... it looks pretty straight to me. He proved an effective political foot soldier in a few Democratic campaigns. Rubbed some elbows at a couple of lefty think tanks. And then... BAM... he's in charge of "dismantling General Motors and rewriting the rules of American capitalism." Forget all that hard work and study, kids! In Obama's America politics trumps knowledge and experience every time.

If you're looking for someone pointing out that it may be just a wee bit irresponsible to put someone so young and inexperienced in charge of something so significant, about the only place to look is in the conservative commentariot. Because, of course, expecting qualifications for an appointee running a multi-billion dollar government project is an entirely partisan issue.

At the moment people seem so dazzled by Obama's Audacity of Hope Hype that niggling details like putting the government takeover / restructuring of the U. S. Auto Industry into the hands of a complete novice slip by largely unremarked. But I've got news for Obama's fans, including his media fan club... It's highly unlikely every single initiative undertaken by Obama is going to prove a dazzling success. And when things start to fail the public will examine things like this and wonder who the hell let such things slide. The political motivations on the Obama side will play easily enough into the usual public cynicism about their politicians. But what, exactly, is going to be the media's excuse for cheering this stuff on rather than sounding the alarm?