Stupid Bush turns Peter Principle up-side-down
By Sinclere Lee
LOS ANGELES (BNW) — From the moment he got into office, Stupid Bush has mastered the art of getting the most dumbest, racist, egotistical, stupidest people he could find to give important government jobs. Hiring Michael Brown as director of the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) is a case in point. In fact, Stupid Bush has turned the Peter Principle up-side-down!
Let me tell you about the Peter Principle. Canadian sociologist Dr. Laurence Johnston Peter in his humoristic book of the same title introduced The Peter Principle concept. In his book, he describes the pitfalls of the bureaucratic organization witnessed during his extensive research into business organization and its management.
The Peter Principle book has attained such renown that The American Heritage Dictionary defines it as "The theory that employees within an organization will advance to their highest level of competence and then be promoted to and remain at a level at which they are incompetent."
While Michael Brown, the top US emergencies official has been removed from his role managing the Hurricane Katrina relief effort, the incompetence in the White House still remains.
Michael Brown, director of the Federal Emergency Management Agency, is being sent back to Washington from Louisiana where he has been overseeing aid work, what about Stupid Bush and the other fools in this administration.
Mr. Brown, who remains head of FEMA, has faced strong criticism over the slow pace of the rescue effort.
In New Orleans, the focus has switched from rescue to recovery though some still resist the evacuation orders.
'Inaccuracies and lies'
Coast Guard Vice-Admiral Thad W Allen who has been overseeing New Orleans relief and rescue efforts is replacing Mr. Brown.
Announcing the reshuffle, Homeland Security Chief Michael Chertoff said Mr. Brown would remain head of FEMA.
"I have directed Mike Brown to return to administering FEMA nationally," he said at a news conference in Baton Rouge, Louisiana.
Mr. Chertoff said he appreciated the work done by the FEMA director and that his replacement had his full support.
Allegations were made that Mr. Brown had exaggerated his previous experience in emergency management.
As news broke of his transfer back to Washington, Michael Brown told AP news agency he was keen to return there to "correct all the inaccuracies and lies that are being said".
The "story", he said, was not his own career but "the worst disaster in US history".
Reports have intensified questioning Mr. Brown's eligibility for his post in the first place. As a result, political pressure on the White House to fire Mr. Brown has intensified, and Peter Principle is certainly in play.
Peter Principle Management is the concept that in bureaucratic organizations, new employees typically start in the lower ranks, but when they prove to be competent in the task to which they are assigned; they get promoted to a higher rank, generally management.
This process of climbing up the hierarchical ladder can go on indefinitely, until the employee reaches a position where he or she is no longer competent. At that moment the process typically stops, since the established rules of bureaucracies make it very difficult to "demote" someone to a lower rank, even if that person would be a much better fit and happier in a non-management role.
The net result of this principle is that most of the management levels of a bureaucracy will be filled by incompetent people, who got there because they were quite good at doing different (and usually, but not always, easier) work than the work they are currently expected to perform.
Stupid Bush is to begin a third visit to the disaster zone on Sunday, with stops in both Mississippi and Louisiana, a spokesman said.
Political figures in both the Republican and Democrat parties have accused the authorities of responding slowly.
Former Secretary of State Colin Powell said there had been "a lot of failures at a lot of levels - local, state and federal".
Debate still rages in Washington into how independent the inquiries being launched into Katrina - led by Stupid Bush himself and the Senate - will really be.
Recovery street by street
"What we are starting today, again... is a recovery operation, a recovery operation to search by street, by grid, for any remains of individuals who have passed away," Terry Ebbert, director of homeland security in New Orleans, said on Friday.
Officials in New Orleans say after initial searches for bodies that the death toll there may be much smaller than the thousands initially feared.
The authorities have secured the city and believe they have persuaded most of the residents that this is no longer a place in which it is fit to live, it was reported.
Those still refusing to leave are being moved out by force, our correspondent adds, though there have been a few isolated cases in which officers have handcuffed residents and carried them from their homes.
Nato has announced that its members will use their ships and aircraft to take aid to the disaster zones as a show of solidarity with the victims.