Mike and all,
I see that Time Magazine did a poll on the 25 People to Blame for the Financial Crisis.
To my surprise, top dog in the guilt-fest is actually the one I would have voted top dog - Phil Gramm. He actually wins by a relatively wide margin, with former Apparatchik, Chris Cox(head of the SEC), coming in second.
The term, apparachik, may seem over the top but Wikipedia states that the modern definition(outside the historical context of the Soviet Union), is thus:
"Today this term is also used in contexts other than Soviet Union. For example, it is often used to describe people who cause bureaucratic bottlenecks in otherwise efficient organizations. It is also frequently used to describe individuals, appointed to positions in any government, on the basis of ideological or political loyalty rather than competence."
Seems to fit rather nicely, especially the last sentence.
Funny that W's daddy presided over the winning of the cold war only to have his son come in and emulate a key characteristic of the corrupt Soviet system.
craig |
